The blue winter light is affecting the photo, although, that said, it is meant to be a view from the seabed.

Birds are essential to our survival. This is what they do for us:

Life Without Birds

Handmade bird silhouette from an earlier project. I’m not quite sure where it is in theoretical space if the viewer is beneath sea level. The wings are detachable.

I have some green/red transparent film coming to see if the red/green lines on the straggly piece of vegetation will show up in 3D.

6th February. The green/red film failed to manifest the straggly 3D element, but I suddenly spotted some gold foil which looked ideal for increasing the illusion of value in the bird plop. One bird was retired and another created, ready to be cut out and positioned.

Here’s the embellished drop of life’s gold, with particles sinking down to the seabed. I’ve given the barnacles protrusions now, agitated by the water and ready to collect the new influx of nutrients

Poop poop-pa-doop

Dropped without thought from the sky,

the mixed bag of fertiliser is on its way to prevent an oceanic desert,

one coral reef at a time.

If only it knew;

how proud it would be.

© Suzanne Conboy-Hill 2026

Or …

Stercus aureum [golden dung]

There’s a word for this stuff

When it falls out of the sky and lands on your best coat.

There’s another when it falls out of the sky and

Onto the hungry land and

Into the starving sea.

They’re not the same.

One is born of ignorant annoyance,

The other of gratitude.

If the birds stop coming,

Neither word will do.

© Suzanne Conboy-Hill 2026