The photographs you are about to see show how a very determined male bird tries to save his female mate that has been seriously injured.
Here the female bird is injured and her condition is not good.
The male bird brings her food and attends to her with love and compassion.
Although he tries to help her, she is too badly injured and dies.
He is shocked over her death and tries desperately to bring her back to life, trying to pull her up and make her move.
He finally realizes that his sweetheart has passed away and will never come back to him, and brokenhearted - he cries over his lost love.
He stands by her side, calling and crying for help. He is devastated by her death.
Finally realizing that she will never return to him, he stands beside her lifeless body with great sadness and sorrow, unable to leave her side.
The photos of these two birds are said to have been taken in the Republic of the Ukraine. This male bird was bound and determined to save his female mate. The photographer sold these pictures for a small price to one of the most famous newspapers in France. All the copies of that newspaper were sold out on the day they published these photos.
From Phizy via email
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41 comments:
ahahahahhahaha
this is the gayest thing i've ever seen
(the text, not the birds...)
Really...
whoever wrote this...just give up..stop posting...
*edit, i just realised it was a woman that wrote this, so forgive me, the article is fine :)
I copied the text from the email, I'm not gay! How dare you - I'm a very macho lady!
How very dare you!!!
:'( This is so sad and beautiful! Though I am a bit upset that someone would just stay and take photos instead of oh, maybe helping the injured bird recover?
its a dear story, which I am glad was shared. However, birds don't have emotions as humans do, so just leave it at that, and leave off the sappy anthropomorphisms. kkt
GSC, I once found a crow with a broken leg (I know I've told this story before)and took it to a vet wrapped in a fluffy blanket. She came over and asked "What do you have in there?" and then "...Oh it's a...crow"
Anon, how do we know what sort of emotions they have.
How sad.
Great sequence. Re: emotions, I think most animals have them, just as we do. We're not so different, and we sure as hell are not better than them.
We sure aren't!
How can you look at those pictures and still say that poor animal doesnt feel? hed mated for life. That creature so clearly mourns the death of his beloved, and to say he doesnt feel is simply ignorance. And as someone said before, I am curious as to why..when the pictures were taken of the female still alive, why help wasnt sought?
Adriana, it would be hard to watch it for me, never mind take photos.
It's odd that everyone assumes, including the original writer of this rather schmaltzy commentary, that the dying/dead bird is a female. Is that because we are to assume it's always a male who must come to the aid of a female? With its more prominently colorful chin patch, it looks to me like it's the male that's just punched the clock into avian eternity....
Good point, chicks rule.
Birds most certainly do have emotions. I have a budgie and cockatiel. When they are offered a treat they bounce around and chirp happily. When they are caged at night they both screech and rattle their toys, they are angry. When my other budgie died last month, my male would not eat for two days and he chirped a weak chirp and searched the house for his mate. It was really sad. Don't get me started on how intelligent and emotional larger birds are. African greys can actually read your emotions and act accordingly.
This story is sad. Anyone who says the bird is not suffering from a loss is pretty cold.
paddy is that you?
Don't be fooled. This is one bird killing another. The photos are not shown in the order in which they were taken. Do you see food in the shot where "he" is supposedly feeding "her"? I don't. It's just random shots of a bird fight.
If you look closely, the "female" bird who "died" does not look the same as the bird in the first photo.
Look at the color(s) on the head/face. People are just letting written words convince them that the story is different than reality. I wonder why someone made up this story.
This is a case for Quincy!
Just ignore the idiots that claim birds don't have feelings.
Oh, I apologize to you guys, maybe you don't want me calling someone an idiot in the comments on your blog, you know I love your blog, I just think it is ridiculous when people claim animals don't have feelings.
Oh, here are the words of the photographer Wilson Hsu
"It's a story about the barn swallows...
In Taiwan. Saturday in Harbor-South. It's a cloudy day. Many barn swallows appeared in Harbor-South, and some of them stayed on the street in flocks. Looking at the trucks running forward and backward on the street, I was worried about them. Suddenly, a big truck passed swiftly in front of me. What left on the ground is a little pile of black shadow. I knew some disaster had happend ... again.
Birds are also quite sentimental. Even though the swallow lying on the ground would no longer budge a bit, another one, looked like his family, flew to the side of him, relunctant to accept the truth ...
The third swallow came close to them, seemingly trying to tell him that the truth couldn't be changed ... But, he screamed dolorously, demanding his friend to leave ... he would rather believe that the disaster had never happened...
Another big truck passed. Strong blast turned the dead swallow on the ground. Observing the change of his gesture, the family swallow was inspired and flew immediately back to accompany the dead swallow ...
Accompanying the dead swallow, he shrieked at him, "Get up! Get up!"
Unfortunately, the other one could no longer respond ... Suddenly, the family swallow stepped closer, trying to grab his body and get him up ...
However, it's too much a burden for him ... But still, he fluttered the wings, again and again ...
The dead swallow couldn't respond, even through he wanted to .... I believe so ...
Another car passed, the family swallow flew up in fright, but came down again immediately after the car had left ...
Even though the other swallows told him that the efforts were in vain, he didn't give up, hoping against hope that his family would get up again ...
Another truck passed. The body budged a bit because of the blast ... The family swallow was inspired again and tried every possible attempt to get him up ...
Finally, he used up all the strength he coud possibly gather ... but still, he couldn't get any response from his family ... All of a sudden, he couldn't bear the sorrow, shrieking at him, "Why don't you get up ?!!!"
I couldn't continue the writing. At last, I was worried that this family swallow, which kept flying up and down when the truck passed, would get hurt by the vehicles, so I couldn't help but move the dead swallow to the bush on the side of the street, although I knew I shouln't have interfered. The family swallow hovered in the sky and screamed several times. Finally, he flew away ... accepted the truth"
original story here - http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=2315290
Thank you very much GSCS(hoping you don't mind me shortening your name) and don't worry about upsetting someone in the comments. The comments are there for exactly that, your comments, however you feel. The only way it would get deleted was if the were any wild accusations or serious bad language.
Apart from the team here at least half the comments are from people moaning about one thing or another so it's nice to have you around.
GSCS...one thing I've learned from blogging is not to take other peoples comments too seriously!
Sure, that anonymous guy keeps commenting on my posts, can't make up his mind what he thinks :-)
For the person who thinks that animals don't have emotions like humans do, must have a miserable life corrupted by religious rhetoric. Animals not only have emotions, they have souls. Isn't it interesting that animals can mate for life and humans just mate, usually. I think the world would be much better off with more little birds like this, than people who post comments that just aren't true.
Yep Brian, just cos we're in charge of ruining the planet doesn't mean we're better than the rest of the creatures!
These photos show a healthy swallow accompanying a moribund and then dead second swallow that had been hit by a vehicle. I suspect whoever started spreading these photos misinterpreted the behavior as mourning, as this blog and other commentors apparently have. The healthy swallow was apparently trying to mate with the injured, and later dead, swallow. Male barn swallows will attempt to mate with dead swallows (Samuel 1971). This behavior has also been shown in ducks (Moeliker 2001), and perhaps other bird species as well. This is why you see no food in the bird's mouth in the "feeding" shot.
By the way, you can't tell the sex of this species by its colors - you have to measure the length of the tail feathers or observe their behavior. So, this might be two males, or it might not. But the bird above that is mating with the dead one is certainly a male, judging by its behavior.
Happy Valentine's Day!
Moeliker, C W. 2001. The first case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard Anas platyrhynchos (Aves: Anatidae). Deinsea 8:243-247.
Samuel, D E. 1971. Field methods for determining the sex of barn swallows (Hirundo rustica). Ohio Journal of Science 71(2):125-128
Ryan, I'll think twice about copy & pasting from an email in future.
A post containing a necrophiliac bird, oh the shame!
i think it's rather undeniable that the male bird was evincing distress.
some may argue that of course he was distressed at the loss of his mate, but that it doesn't mean that he has emotions, as such.
it must be acknowledged that we *don't* know what he's feeling.
note that the bird kingdom is quite remarkable, and many birds demonstrate more devotion to their young, and fidelity to their mates, than humans do.
also note that some birds (namely parrots, and even crows) have demonstrated intelligence **that rivals that of a 5-year-old human child**...including problem-solving skills and independent construction of sentences to convey ideas and desires...i don't find it at all difficult to accept that similar depth of intelligence/feeling may be present in lesser birds, more than we may realize.
As to why the photographer chose to document the process, rather than intervene...we can't know.
I would forward the idea that the photographer may have realized that:
A) the female was too badly injured to help, anyway;
B) she probably wouldn't live more than a few minues, anyway;
C) In trying to help her, the photographer would probably scare her badly enough to stop her heart, anyway;
D) And ultimately, if he interfered, all he would likely succeed in doing would be scaring her mate away from her side when he wanted so much to be there, for the last few minutes of her life.
Sometimes we can only be witnesses, unfortunately.
I think the photographer, and the newspaper who carried the story,
did us a service;
in providing one of those periodic reminders we need so much,
that if a little bird, so much lower than us on the food chain, can feel and demonstrate this type of devotion and caring,
why can't humans?
Jayne, thanks for a thoughtful look into the story.
An interesting thing about this article is that these are actually two male birds. It seems that they are fighting and it has a lethal outcome for one of them. If you don't believe me look it up.
Another interesting thing about this article, is that not a single one of you knows anything about birds, yet you claim this and that about them and their emotional life. In the end it is a lot of words written for no purpose at all.
As an individual who has owned dozens of birds, is an avid birder, and a lover of birds... There is something a bit odd about this sequence.
While I'm certain that the widowing swallow is genuinely bereaved, to me it looks like he's less concerned about losing a dear friend than he is concerned about losing an opportunity to reproduce.
It is the third image that makes me think so. When a long tailed bird mates (swallows, or for those of you who own birds, parakeets) it shifts its tail to the side, to allow the vents to align correctly - also notice the positioning of the male bird relative to the female. Finally, bird owners may recognize the puffed up breast feathers, which is almost always a courting behavior - and often this is done during copulation.
Again, I do not suggest that the bird is not upset - I'm simply observing that anthropomorphizing any animal will make images like these appear more sympathetic than they are. This kind of "necrophilia" is not entirely unheard of in birds - but hopefully not as common in humans.
I apologize for removing some of the cuteness from the sequence...
Permafrost, at least you're being realistic, I just copied it from an email without a second thought.
He seems to be flogging a dead horse - or shagging it as the case may be.
if the bird died, obviously it's gonna look a bit different from when it was living. The caption says the male was trying to pick her up, I'd imagin her feathers would get a little ruffled.
This is heartwrenching. I'm still teary eyed.
i'm just gonna pretend like this is first post.
profound.
Savannah, I know, it's sad no matter what the real story is.
Chuck, it might as well be, I've forgotten most of the older posts now :-)
This is so sad. And so beautiful.
I couldn't be bothered reading through all of the comments, but I did see the ones about animals not having emotions. I very seriously doubt it.
I can't be certain of this but I'm told that, in NZ (where I live), during duckshooting season, hunters adhere to a custom whereby if you shoot a paradise duck, you shoot their mate also, out of humanity - paradise ducks mate for life, and if one is left alone, they spend the rest of their lives driving themselves crazy pining. How is that not emotion?
I'm against hunting in all forms but I think it's a good custom.
Also, in the therapeutic community where I live, there are two huge fluffy old cats, and I swear to God they know if you're feeling unhappy. They come up beside you and put their paw on you like a human. It's so cute.
Anyway, I'll finish chiming in now...
Xριστινα, didn't know that about the Paradise ducks. Be interesting to get inside their little brains and learn what was going on.
I'm picturing those two old cats, pics please! Hehe.
First let me say YES animals do feel emotions (FEAR) etc.
Romantic emotions? (NO)
Now if you look at these pictures you will see, The male was not bringing her food.
If you look at his posture and positioning, (and you know anything about Bird behavior) it's quite clear he is trying to have intercourse with her.
It is very very common with birds that when a bird of the opposite sex is disabled or dead as in this case,another bird will try to have sexual intercourse with it.
There is nothing immoral about it, it's just their natural behavior.
Clifford you have GOT to be kidding me. I have worked with birds for YEARS and NEVER have I seen a bird try to copulate with a dying or dead mate. Just sayin.
OK this is a sad story and as many people said why didnt some one help the poor bird??? and im only a beginner at bird watching but it looks to me like the bird helping the hurt one is a female since the dead one had a big colorful orange chin and the alive one didnt have very much orange. also i agree with neya. and just an observation the alive one looked like a young one.
o and BIRDS DO HAVE EMOTIONS AND MANY MATE FOR LIFE AND WOULD MOURN VERY MUCH IF ONE DIED AND PROBLABLY WOULD DO THE SAME SO DONT SAY BIRDS DONT HAVE EMOTIONS!!!(just adressing the mean/unaware people who say birds dont have emotions)
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