A trio of feathered characters

Photographer:  Gregorio Borgia.

This picture accompanied the story of the attack by a seagull and a crow on two "peace doves" released from the Vatican last January.   I did a blog post on the subject at the time. But here I'm not interested in the story but in the birds themselves, or the photograph itself.

I liked the picture so much I've had it as my desktop image ever since. I've continued to be fascinated with it and have come to appreciate it more and more as I look at it.  It has come to seem to me that this couldn't be a more perfect artistic creation than if the photographer had personally posed all the elements in it, and yet it's one of the most spontaneous shots you'll ever see.  Three birds in flight caught at a beautifully orchestrated moment.

I love everything about it, the composition itself, the way the colors and forms work together, and especially the character of the birds themselves.  What amazing personalities those three birds are!  I try to forget the fact that the aggressor birds are trying to kill the little doves, and in a series of pictures that also accompanied the story it looks like the seagull has seriously hurt or possibly already killed one of them.  So here I'm looking at only the purely visual or abstract qualities in the picture.  This dove is still alive and fleeing though the crow is in hot pursuit. 

Isn't it beautiful how the whole picture is shades of gray from white to black?  Isn't it beautiful how there is one pure white bird, one pure black bird and another that has both black and white and shades of gray in its feathers?  Isn't it beautiful the way the scalloped flaring feathers of the dove and crow echo the fluting on the column behind them, and the seagull's fluted feathers too?  The way the background seems to frame the action in front of it?   The perfect spacing between the birds in flight?  Surely this picture was planned! And yet it wasn't.

Then there are those magnificent personalities.  What an innocent vulnerable little white bird the dove is.  Its wings are held in a graceful position like a ballet dancer's, its tail feathers are a perfect scalloped arc.  It has a pudgy belly though, a bird that likes the sedentary life.

Then that crow closing in on the dove with its beak open to bite it, all energy and purpose.  Look at the lean mean torso on that creature in contrast with the dove's pudginess.  He must have a crow's version of sculpted abs and pecs beneath those feathers.  And the wings, not gracefully posed but pushing and pulling the air in the pursuit of his prey, working hard.

Then that magnificent thug of a seagull.  He makes me laugh.  Shoulders hunched, head down, a hoodlum, a gangster, up to no good, pumping his wings in pursuit of what must be the other dove off screen. 

I love them all, and I love the photograph.  Just wanted to share it.  Enjoy.