A bird in the hand...

This scarlet tanager hit my colleague's window at our office and left quite a few feathers stuck to it. We looked down and saw the bright red bird with jet black wings on the ground below. We thought it was dead. I rushed downstairs to investigate. It wasn't moving and in danger of being stepped upon so I carefully picked it up with my right hand. It started to struggle and gain its senses to I stretched to put it up in the tree so it could collect its wits. Before I could do that it broke free and flew into the adjacent tree. It seemed feisty so that was a good sign. It perched there and I went back upstairs to fetch the office camera. I returned and took a bunch of photos of which the best is shown here (plus one photo of the feathers on the window). As you can see, it lost a fair bit of feathers from its breast. It seemed to be spunky enough and flew off about 10 minutes later which suggests to me it will be fine. I have never seen one before. It was a lucky day for both of us. It's best viewed large.

• DMC-FZ7:
• f/4:
• 1/50":
• 72.0mm:
• ISO 80

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