Looking at the back window last night, I spotted signs that somewhere out there is very dazed pigeon!

It must have hit with quite an impact to smear beak and wing-tip impressions on the glass but, from the lack of a dead pigeon on the ground, I assume that it must have recovered and been able to fly off.

The impressions were faint and hard to make out so I used my 50mm lens wide open at f/1.8 to narrow the focal pane and also spent some time finding a position where I could line key points against darker patches in the back ground. I have also done some post-processing work with The Gimp to further improve contrast. As a result, you will see the impressions made by the bird fairly clearly if you click the photo to view it in a larger format on Flickr, as well as revealing all the dust on the inside of the window!

Coincidently, this was my 10,000 photo with my Nikon D40, which I’ve had since Christmas 2006. The camera is back to naming them DSC_0001, etc, but now puts them in a new folder.