Day 251 of Current Days: Pigeon Residue, Part II
I pull the clump of feathers onto my desk. I feel like I should be wearing gloves, but I don’t feel like going to the kitchen again. I begin to examine the loot with my bare hands.
The feathers seem to belong to a Eurasian collared dove. They are perfectly arranged by pure chance. Well, maybe I shouldn’t overstate the purity. But to arrange them into such a composition on purpose, one would have to have seen quite a bit in life. Carefully, so as not to tear them apart, I examine the base. There is a fair amount of tissue and hard, small crumbs. Initially, I take them for finger bones.
I look closer. They are grains. Swollen from sitting in the bird’s crop. So, the pigeon most likely died from a car strike.
When a bird dies at the hands of a cat, there are usually few feathers, there is a body, and the head is missing. When a bird dies at the hands of another bird, there are many feathers—clean, like from a pillow—and no body. When a bird dies from a car, there is often a mess.
Predatory animals do not tear bird crops open. A crop is usually torn by the shattering glass of a car lamp. Or the crushing of the entire body. It is interesting that I found no trace of the corpse. A clever human probably buried the bird in a trash can immediately.
Gently, I pick the grains off the feathers. There are only two; the rest is skin. Dried. If I start tearing it off, the whole thing will fall apart. I would then have common collared dove feathers, not in the best condition. Separate. The composition would be lost. I could try to reassemble them. But where is the joy in that? It would then be a work of man. An artificial feather ornament.
I take out a scalpel. I decide to clean only as much as possible without disconnecting the feathers. After some time, the feathers are still dirty at the base. I can do nothing more without losing the composition.
I go to my daughter’s room and take the boxes with jewelry-making components. I take an old earring hook and some silver wire. I wrap the wire around the base of the feathers, masking the tissue remnants and incorporating the earring hook. The whole thing creates a rather original earring. I begin to regret that I don’t have pierced ears.
Holding the earring with one hand, I sweep the grains and feather remnants to the floor with the other.
Pigeon Residue: Earring, 15 cm, 2026. Feathers and wire.
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