Street Candid: Urban Death

Ted Szukalski

I've taken this image some weeks ago and resisted from posting it here but I keep coming back to it. I came across a dead seagull, and it made me realise that I have seen a dead animal in the streets. There are stray cats and dogs, countless birds and yet I have never seen one dead. Where do they die? They do not live for ever, or do they?

Warning: this image may be disturbing for some thus only a link.

http://www.digital-photo.com.au/v/People/Street+Photography/Dead-Seagull-IMG_20070228_7206.jpg.html

Poindexter

It is just a dead seagull - nothing to be too squeemish about. You're right, it is rare to see anything dead around town - never really thought about it before.

saurora

It's really a very gentle, and beautiful image in spite of the subject. Made me a little sad, but not disturbed. Nice conversion, Ted.

Dick on Aruba

Ted Szukalski wrote:

..., countless birds and yet I have never seen one dead. Where do they die? They do not live for ever, or do they?...

Really a great capture Ted.

Well, nature take care of them selves. I own around 50 birds (parakeets and vinches) and what lives have to die, no question about that.

From the many that die during the years, only a very few are nog digged up from out of my yard. Snakes, rats, ants, cats and even chickens find their way to the dead animal and consume it.

Ones I lay down a dead lovebird at the roots from a tree in my yard and wend inside to setup my camera to see if I could take a picture from whatever had interest to eat it. Out of my window I could see the tree and take the pictures. Laying down the bird and going inside to the window took me about 15 seconds. I looked but my dead lovebird was gone! Go figure!

Birds in general get sick, fall out of a tree and die on the ground and get eaten by other animals. Dogs and cats and other larger animals going to hide themselves and get only discovered by humans if they start to smell. Ants will take good care of the larges animals.

Dick.

ShepsMom

I lilked that shot a lot. Very pieceful. I didn't find it disturbing at all, quiet the oposite. B&W was a great choice.

raptorcaptor

Nice the b&w works well for this photo!

Ted Szukalski

Thank you all. I wasn't sure how it would be received. I should have known better - this is a mature forum unlike some.

System

There's a great emotion in that image Ted. It's framed very well and the positon of the bird's wings being spread creates something of an angelic flight. Well done.

Gary Glass

I really like the tonal range. And I especially like the way you cropped it. I don't know if I'd have thought to do it like that, but it works beautifully.

Ted Szukalski

Framing was very deliberate at the time of capture to fit the shape of the bird to the lower left triangle.

Gale

I have to agree 100% with saurora

Well done

wxwax

I believe animals who don't feel top notch try to find a place to shelter, hidden from their predators. So their corpses are usually hidden, then are eaten or decay very quickly.

Thwack

I've seen plenty of road kill including a couple of deer in San Jose recently (on Hwy 85...made a REAL mess since that's a pretty busy highway and the carcass was hit by multiple cars apparently).

I almost created one myself last night when a skunk darted in front of the SUV I was driving. I'd rather not get that carcass stuck under neath!

Dogs are pretty common where I live. I've seen a few cats, plenty of squirrels, various birds, snakes (I've run over several while on my motorcycle), racoons...used to be plenty of armadillos dead in the road when I lived in Louisiana. Man, those things make a nasty crunching sound when you put a tire through them!

I believe most cities/states have crews that clean up the carcasses promptly to avoid the health risks of letting them bloat up and rot where they landed.