The Bird Murderer

A couple of weeks ago, I went out in the garden to say good morning to my faithful sidekick, Mr. Pickles, the lop-eared rabbit, when I came across a crime scene.

Feathers everywhere.

No corpse, no fingerprints, no weapons, no sign of a break-in, the assailant had been clever to leave no incriminating evidence. Just…feathers.

The victim appeared to be a small bird judging by the length of its feathers. The murder scene was directly in front of Mr. Pickles’ hutch, the perfect witness, except he wasn’t because a) he’s a rabbit and b) he can’t talk, see [a].

Then, last week, the plot thickened. Another murder. We have a serial killer on our hands.  This time, the feathers were strewn all over the garden, many more than the time before, big, long, grey feathers that looked like they belonged to a collard dove.

This was a more brutal murder, this time he had left the body behind. Or parts of it, it’s hard to tell. Flies were gathering by the time I plucked (wink, wink) up the courage to investigate the scene.

I could only hope it wasn’t one of our beloved collard doves who visit our garden every day and sit on the same spot on the fence, watching the world pass by. And probably look for scrummy worms and berries too.  We’ve had these two collard doves visit our garden for donkeys years (realistically, it’s probably been several generations visit us but I like to think it’s the same elderly dove pair year-on-year).

The murder scene was directly beneath their spot on the fence. 

Keeping watch from the house, I spotted one of the doves later in the day sitting on the fence. Just the one. I began to get a bit concerned as to where the other one was…there is always two of them, but not that day. I fear the worst.

The days pass and the evidence decomposes into the ground, completing the life cycle. Then, today I see the collard doves! Two of them on the fence! They are sitting next to each other but one is much smaller than the other. I think it’s a baby, coming to learn the ways of the fence, or coming to mourn a parent.