Remains of a Song

I observe window collisions-- quite a lot of them. My campus building is large and has odd shapes: skywalks, overhangs, and multi-tiered walls of glass. The architecture and the situation of the building between riparian and prairie habitats seems to result in numerous window kills each semester. I do my best to document them, trying to be thorough and precise, and upload them here to iNat. In other words, I have a scientific mindset and do not often feel affected by the morosity of my observations.

On occasion, however, something strikes me. Such as today.

I started this morning with an eBird checklist while I made my way around the perimeter. It was early and a few warblers were singing. There was yellow warbler, Nashville warbler, and a Tennessee warbler which I heard sing in the field for the first time. It was a lovely morning full of so many songs that it was difficult to differentiate where one stopped and another began. I passed a window-collision hotspot where a common yellowthroat I had observed still lay. No other bird had struck, thankfully, and I moved on. Altogether, I found only a deceased Lincoln's sparrow for the section of perimeter I checked before concluding my walk and heading inside.

I went to the library for an hour then grabbed some lunch. I wanted to sit overlooking the eastern field. As I sat down, I saw a fresh window kill where I had checked just a few hours before. After I ate, I went down to document and upload it.

A Tennessee warbler. The very species that had filled my morning with awe by it's singing, and it was freshly dead on the pavement.

There was something painful about it. Hearing it's song, alive as alive can be, and seeing it's body, dead like the many others that strike our building. A song that lay dead on the pavement, silent.

I have linked both the song in life and the body in death.

Posted on May 13, 2024 05:33 PM by roboraptor