You don't see many dead birds around - apart from those flattened on the road, and they are mostly rooks. Yet we are told that winter conditions kill off huge numbers of the smaller birds. They must hide themselves away in hedges and bushes. Then, of course, there are predators galore, four-footed and avian, to enjoy the carrion. Insects too. And is there any reason not to believe that birds, like humans, can just pop off - heart, or something of the kind. Young relatives came on the still-warm body of a long-eared owl down the field from the house. Lying on its back, claws gripping strands of grass. Heart-attack? Anyway, he was soon stuffed.
And is it possible that two examples given recently in this space of sudden death by a pigeon and by a cock pheasant coming in over trees and being startled by a human aiming, in one case a gun, in another case a stick in a gun-like position, were in fact frightened to death - or, if you like, victims of a sudden heart attack? You might remember that the writer of the second letter confesses that he would not have dared to write of this to the Field, had he not seen in that journal the young boy's account of the death of the pigeon. (The second writer, it might be noted, had been shooting for 67 years.)
And now in comes a letter from Mr Jim Leonard of Tramore, Co Waterford recording a similar incident (which happened in Meath): "I was a very small boy, aged about nine or 10, walking across a large field with my father in the heart of the countryside - he carrying a shotgun in the hope of getting a pigeon or two (this was in the hungry 1930s) me armed with a rustic stick (ash plant or whatever). Suddenly a group of crows (rooks) appeared over a neighbouring field, well out of range. I raised my stick, taking a bead on one of the birds, went through the motions of firing a shot and instantly, to my astonishment and possible delight, it plummeted to the ground like a stone. We laughed off the incident as a funny coincidence and didn't bother to go looking for a body.
"How odd it is that two other (presumably rational) people have had similar experiences. I wonder if my crow had succumbed to a heart attack or something at the psychological moment." A story well told, and in the most perfect handwriting. Coincidential heart attack - or frightened to death?