A bird in the hand...

...is not very alive. In fact, it's dead.

I found it on the grass under my bedroom window (I assume it had flown into the window and died. We have a lot of birds flying into our windows, but never known one die before) and after I shook all the ants out of it's eyes (yuk!) I got quite a few interesting macro feather shots. (Not often you get the chance - though we found a dead rainbow lorikeet in the garden once and gave it a proper burial, without me taking a single photo! I even kept it in the freezer for a while, with a view to taking it to school... but decided that they might not appreciate that...)

But I preferred the human touch of N holding it. It was then duly buried in the green waste bin.

Don't ask me what sort of bird it is - I don't know. I have been through my bird book twice and somehow non-moving birds seem much harder to identify, which seems a bit perverse really. Any ideas welcome. It's small and green'ish yellow... maybe a native robin of some sort? It might have had white around the eyes before the ants came along.

Sorry it's a dead thing, if that upsets anyone. I almost blipped a dead mouse a few weeks ago, but it had blood, so I didn't! I don't think you'll need to see it bigger (though the feathers are very pretty, even if N's painted bitten nails aren't).