Wildlife

Birds of Oakhaven

16 species, all of them British, all of them where you would actually find them. Pigeons on the roofs of Radworth, rooks on the golf course, a wren in the hedge and swans on the river. No seagull-shaped stand-ins and nothing that belongs on a different continent.

A pigeon that flies like the photographs

Most games flap a bird's wings up and down like a toy: the same speed both ways, the wing held flat. A real pigeon does not, and we can say exactly how, because Eadweard Muybridge photographed one in 1887. His plates 755, 756 and 757 in Animal Locomotion, "Pigeon flying", catch a single bird frame by frame from the side and from the front. They are in the public domain. Here is plate 756.

A Victorian photographic plate: two rows of twelve small sepia photographs of a pigeon in flight against a gridded background, each catching the wings at a different point in the beat. — Eadweard Muybridge, *Animal Locomotion*, plate 756, "Pigeon flying", 1887. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

What the photographs show is not what you would guess. At the bottom of every downstroke the wingtips finish below the bird and ahead of its head: the wing sweeps forward all the way down. At the top the wings are up and behind the shoulders, and on the way back up the wing folds in tight before it opens again.

We also read the Harvard study of pigeon takeoff and landing by Berg and Biewener, which measured how the angle of the beat changes from a takeoff to a landing. Our first reading of it was wrong. Its angles are measured against the ground, not against the bird, so we had the takeoff sweeping the wings backwards. Laid against Muybridge's photographs, the answer was simpler. Relative to its own body, a pigeon beats down and forward when it takes off and when it lands. What changes is the angle of the body, nose up to climb and tilted back to brake.

So the town pigeons now have three animations of their own, built from those references:

Flight: six wingbeats a second, a long downstroke sweeping forward and a quick folded upstroke, with the body bobbing slightly on each beat.
Takeoff: a crouch and a jump, nose up, then three hard beats at about ten a second, the wings clapping together over the back on each upstroke.
Landing: the flare, wings forward and legs reaching out in front, two braking flutters, touchdown, a flick of the tail, and the wings folding away.

Walk at a pigeon in the game now and that is the order you see them in: takeoff, flight, landing, then settling down to rest.

Three rows of ten numbered frames of a grey model pigeon seen side-on, in the style of a Victorian photographic plate: one wingbeat in flight, then a takeoff, then a landing. — Our version of the plate: the game's three pigeon animations rendered side-on. Top, one wingbeat, a sixth of a second. Middle, the takeoff. Bottom, the landing.

What we have not solved yet

The pigeon's wing is one bone from shoulder to tip. A real wing bends at the wrist, so the tight fold on the upstroke is faked by sweeping the whole wing back. At the distance you usually see a pigeon it reads as a fold. Up close it is a straight wing.
The landing animation starts when the bird arrives, so the flare happens at touchdown. A real pigeon flares a moment before. Starting it early means changing how every flight ends, and we will only do that if it looks wrong in play.
The game's logs confirm the three animations play in the right order on real pigeons. A long look at a flock at street distance is the next check.
The magpie and rook still fly with the older, simpler wingbeat. They are next in line for the same treatment.

Every bird in the game

Pictures marked "In the game" are frames from Second Chance. Those marked "The game model" are the same models lit in a plain studio so you can see them properly. Hedgerow portraits are still to come.

Town

A grey feral pigeon with an iridescent green neck, orange eye and coral-pink feet standing side-on in long grass. — **Feral pigeon32 cm**Works the pavements for dropped litter, scatters when you walk at it, and roosts at night. Radworth alone gives it over a thousand places to land: the ridge of every terraced house, two spots in every oak and the top of every bus stop.In the game

Portrait to come

Blackbird25 cmHops across the grass, stops, cocks its head and listens. Heads for cover at night, and when the rain or the wind gets up.

A black and white magpie with a long blue-green tail walking on rough grass in front of a red-brick wall and ferns. — **Magpie46 cm**Mostly tail. Stands sentry, struts over to inspect anything new, and shares the town's bad-weather sense with the blackbird.In the game

Fields and the golf course

A glossy black rook with a pale bare face at the base of its grey bill, standing side-on. — **Rook45 cm**Out on the golf course fairways. Built on the magpie's behaviour but with its own body: a short square tail and the pale bare face, because at fairway range the silhouette is the only way to tell a corvid apart.The game model

Portrait to come

Carrion crow47 cmAll black, heavy bill, no bare face. Walks about in the lane and is the last thing to get out of your way.

Portrait to come

Wood pigeon41 cmBigger than the town pigeon, with the white neck patch and the white wing bar. Clatters out of the hedge when disturbed. The one bird the butcher will buy.

Hedgerows

Portrait to come

Robin14 cmOut from six in the morning until seven at night, the last small bird still about at dusk.

Portrait to come

Wren9.5 cmThe smallest bird in the game: warm russet brown, finely barred, under ten centimetres from beak to tail.

Portrait to come

Dunnock14 cmStreaky brown back, slate-grey head. Easy to mistake for a sparrow until you look.

Portrait to come

Blue tit11.5 cmCobalt cap, white face, yellow front. The most colourful thing in the hedge.

Portrait to come

Great tit14 cmBlack head, white cheeks, and the black stripe down the yellow breast.

Portrait to come

Song thrush22 cmSpotted cream breast. When it panics it flushes OUT across the road before it climbs, which is how thrushes really get hit by cars.

Portrait to come

Linnet13.5 cmRed-breasted in the breeding season. Panic-flushes low across the road like the thrush.

The river

A mallard drake with a glossy green head, white collar, chestnut breast, grey flanks and a blue wing patch. — **Mallard58 cm**Drake and duck are separate models, not one recoloured: green head and chestnut breast for him, mottled brown for her. Both carry the blue wing patch.The game model

A white mute swan with a long curved neck and an orange bill with a black knob at its base. — **Mute swan1.5 m**Cob and pen are modelled separately, the biggest birds on the river by a distance.The game model

A Canada goose with a black neck and head, a white chin strap and a brown-grey body. — **Canada goose1 m**Black neck, white chin strap, and never far from the water.The game model

Elsewhere

Research - the other pages that show the working behind the game.
Advanced Weather System - the rain and wind the birds take cover from.
The devlog - the day-to-day version, faults and fixes included.