missing flight vol. III

Searching for owls that aren't there.

missing flight vol. II

The myth, that the Monarchy and the government will fall if the ravens leave the Tower of London is well known, but I didn't realise that each raven has one of it's wings clipped so that it can't fly far from the tower. Now on a mission to get some raven wing clippings…

missing flight vol. I

Photo © Arthur Christiansen.
From The Collins Guide to the Countryside in Winter by Alastair Fitter & Richard Fitter

Wing prints of a Magpie in the snow.

in a word

All images © Charles Barten & magic-lantern.eu

More from the Magic Lantern Slide Collection of Charles Barten.
With thanks for allowing me to reproduce his images here.

with microfilm strapped to their ankles

All images © Charles Barten & magic-lantern.eu

A nice fact: during the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) carrier pigeons were crucial for communication outside Paris, which was under siege. Pigeons were carried out of the city by balloon, with both official and private 'dispatches'. Correspondence was mainly in the form of microfilms, allowing for up to 21 letters to be documented on film and carried in a tube by a single pigeon. The microfilms, once they had arrived at their destination, were projected, read and copied by teams of clerks, using magic lanterns. The letters were transcribed onto special forms and often annotated with 'pigeon' before being sent on to the addressee.

If time and money were no issue, I'd send out a flock of pigeons with hand-drawn magic-lantern messages right this minute. The Magic Lantern Slide Collection of Charles Barten in the meantime offers some beautiful inspiration, both in terms of material referencing birds, flight and other skirr-related activities but also for text-based and hand-drawn magic-lantern slides (see tomorrow's post). A big thank you to Charles Barten for allowing me to reproduce just a few of his slides here.

airmail

snowy & barn

With help from Cornwall Birding

I appear to have become a twitcher…
This evening at dusk: the impossible task of photographing an owl I am unlikely to be able to see or hear. But I think perhaps that is the idea.

bracelets

sermon to the birds

According to folk-lore, one day when Francis of Assisi was traveling with a group of companions, they arrived at a clearing in which birds filled the trees lining the road. Francis told his friends to wait for him while he spoke to his sisters the birds. The birds surrounded him, and not one flew away, the power of his speech holding them transfixed.

'My little sisters, the birds, much bounden are ye unto God, your Creator, and always in every place ought ye to praise Him, for that He hath given you liberty to fly about everywhere, and hath also given you double and triple rainment; moreover He preserved your seed in the ark of Noah, that your race might not perish out of the world; still more are ye beholden to Him for the element of the air which He hath appointed for you; beyond all this, ye sow not, neither do you reap; and God feedeth you, and giveth you the streams and fountains for your drink; the mountains and valleys for your refuge and the high trees whereon to make your nests; and because ye know not how to spin or sow, God clotheth you, you and your children; wherefore your Creator loveth you much, seeing that He hath bestowed on you so many benefits; and therefore, my little sisters, beware of the sin of ingratitude, and study always to give praises unto God.'

Saint Francis of Assisi, patron saint of the animals
c 1220

mist net

Image: BTO