Sunday 4 July 2010

BIRD STRIKE!


Some times life can throw really strange things your way.
For example yesterday i made the journey from Rennes ,France,back home to Dublin.
On landing at Rennes our Aircraft experienced a birdstrike
which led to a very long delay of 7 hours to our flight.
The main reason was that there was no one available locally to certify the plane fit to fly at Rennes airport.
The answer to this was to fly in another Aer lingus craft
with a technician on board to certify, if possible, or to fly the passengers home if not.
As it turned out all was good and the plane took off around 9.30
7 hours after the scheduled departure time.
The Irony of the the night was that in compensation for the delay we where offered free refreshments on the flight
and for some reason the only item available from the extensive menu of sandwich's was chicken and Stuffing!!
Bird strike number 2!!
An hour and twenty minutes later we arrived in Dublin
So we jumped into a taxi to make the journey home and we where delighted to make it back to fontenoy street in less than 15 minutes.
And now for the weird bit!!
After a couple minutes I entered the main room of the house which had been closed up for most of the previous 2 weeks but
checked on friday afternoon by a friend( who confirmed to me since that it was an empty space)
Sitting on the couch was a Racing pigeon I scanned the room quickly, all the windows where closed, the fire place had a fireguard in place,and apart from the odd splattering of pigeon shite around the place all was sound.
I immediately worried about the health of the bird and tried to pick it up ass i closed in on it it bolted and it left four tail feathers in my hand (which i quickly dropped to the floor)
Bird strike number 3.
In the past I have had some photographic experience with racing pigeons and their owners and when i finally picked it up
its ring showed it was a bird born in 1996 so it was probably over 14 yeqrs old as most hatching happens in spring!!
Well the fact that a bird could make it to this ripe old age and find itself in my living space on "the night of the bird strike" is just mind blowing.
So as is so often the case in Irish Documentary photography, I decided to revisit the site of this final bird strike after the event and photograph the traces of what was left behind in an effort to capture the essence of a strange day.

Unfortunately I had cleaned the shit up immediately so all that was left to me was the tail feathers.

I HOPE I HAVE DONE THEM JUSTICE!!

By the by I visited 3 photography exhibitions,all part of the photoireland festival,and I was most impressed at the breath and depht of the content of all, See the program for the remaining week here!I am planning to get as much of it covered as possible.

Finally I added 4 new images to my type 55 gallery shot in Bretagne over the last 2 weeks click here to view it
Also my holiday postcard page is getting bigger right here
I hope you enjoy it,please comment if you have anything to say about it or any other part of this post
its always a great help to me to recieve feedback

12 comments:

  1. What a bizarre Bird story.......... but don't you just love coincidences!!!
    Thought you were gone for the Summer when I saw your initial post.... was surprised to hear you are back already!

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  2. carole is holding the fort
    i go back early august
    for another 3 weeks
    i will try to treat this part like a dream sequence(so far so good)
    think i just missed you at the expo today
    well done loved the show!!

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  3. hah...welcome back David.
    i see lots of weird stories on your way back ;)
    all the best!

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  4. and its all true!!
    youve seen the evidence on the top of the page!!
    did you se the polaroids?

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  5. yep. just after i posted my comment.
    i love them David. beautiful images!

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  6. Jana Vourgourakis5 July 2010 at 20:02

    great story....beautiful pictures!

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  7. hi jana delighted to hear from you,thanks very much.did you discover both galleries easily?which one was your favourite of the 2 galleries?
    hope you and your men are all good!!(still have this lovely pic of your little fella watching ice age in my head)

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  8. Just thank your lucky stars that is was'nt an owl - remember Micky Mccay...Carole

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  9. Indeed what a mess, but as far as i can remember that was a DEAD owl

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  10. Yea but i was thinking of the MESS he left. Another birdy thing, we passed by "chicken shit" today :(

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  11. Jana Vourgourakis7 July 2010 at 10:15

    Hi David,
    I think I found your galleries-- I looked through your photos of Bretagne and your "postcards." I love Brittany (especially the crepes!) so I am partial to those photos and I'd say the soccer ball photo is my favorite, though they are all beautiful....did you get to eat some of those artichokes?
    Jana

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  12. Hey Jana,i am waiting for my next visit in august.there is a restaurant
    in Roscoff which serves a whole artichoke in vinagrette from the fields i have worked in last week i think that would be the place to try one(their onions are amazing too!!)
    thanks again for your comments and please keep your eye out for friends and associares who are leaving Dublin(got to keep it going!!)

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