Everyday Dying

It has been a few months since I have published my previous photos of dead birds in the earlier post . Over the succeeding months I encountered three interesting specimens, which I decided to share in this post. Bird 1: Spanish Seagull in Tabarca, Alicante, Spain The corpse of a seagull found on a beach of pebbles in Tabarca, Spain I have encountered this dead seagull during my holiday in Spain in late February, as I was walking along the beach with my friends. This beach was part of the Tabarca island, located very close to Alicante. The views there were amazing and it was one of the best holidays I ever had. That's why a month later I came back to Alicante, and with all that travelling and chaos at my workplace I haven't had time to write many new posts.  But going back to the theme of this post, surely, dead seagulls must be a very common sight in places close to the sea and other water reservoirs. But while most people will look at cadavers like this with...

An unusual phenomenon has been observed in various parts of the world, which has recently been ocurring more regularly. Flocks of flying birds suddenly appear to loose control and fall to the ground. While this has occurred with a variety of bird species, it appears to be most common with crows and blackbirds. Mysterious phenomena are being documented all over the world of entire flocks of birds literally falling from the sky. While most of the birds die after taking the fall, some survive but are usually not strong enough to pick themselves up and fly away. Some witnesses of these events reported that the surviving birds appeared to be paralysed, being too weak to stand, even when pedestrians attempted to help them. The most recent event to date was observed at the end of January this year in Italy, Europe, and Draper, US. The bodies of many of the fallen birds had been flattened. Mostly blackbirds and crows are being affected. In many cases the exact causes of death remai...

In  one of my previous posts I wrote about the Qualqilya zoo, where taxidermy is used to preserve dead animals, many of which had been killed by war, so that they can still be exhibited. Similarly, the city of Gaza and its zoo had been significantly affected by the militant conflict between Israel and Palestine, but the Gaza zoo had suffered to a much greater extent. Mummified animals were displayed as exhibits in the zoo. The zoo in Gaza opened in 2007 and many of its animals were smuggled accross the Egyptian border to create the initially thriving attraction. However, in 2008 a military offensive was launched by Israel against Hamas, which lasted 3 weeks, and during that time the zoo owner was unable to access the establishment. As a result, many animals starved to death. To preserve them, Mr Awaida (the owner) decided to resort to self-taught taxidermy using formaldehyde and sawdust. The conditions in the area had not improved since. Due to shortages in funding many ...

Qalqilya is a Palestinian city, which houses a 2-hectare zoo, open since 1986. It used to be a popular attraction among Arabic and Israeli visitors. However, once the Second Intifada (Palestinian uprising against Israel) began, visitors from outside of Qalqilya were no longer permitted to visit the zoo.  The zoo was often surrounded by violence as protests broke out. For example, at one time school children decided to throw stones at passing Israeli tanks. In response, the soldiers started shooting at them. This resulted in very some tragic losses.  One of the zoo's key projects were its giraffes. At the time the zoo housed two giraffes, male and female, with the female being pregnant at the time. When the sound of gunfire could be heard in the giraffes' enclosure, the male giraffe became very frightened, he panicked, and ran into a wall of his enclosure. This caused him to fall down, and as he was unable to get up, he died due to failed blood circulation (giraffes must not ...