Bird leaves ghostly mark on house window

This is the imprint left by the bird which flew at full-speed into a double-glazed window.

Amazingly the bird, thought to be a wood pigeon, survived the high-speed collision which left a perfect image of its body on the glass.

Stunned Valerie Dinwiddy, 61, was woken up at 5.20am on July 17 by what sounded like an explosion outside her home in Bishop's Stortford, Herts. But when she looked out the window all was calm.



The mystery was solved a few days later when her husband Simon, 66, spotted the extraordinary 2ft-wide imprint of a bird on their staircase window.

Retired Valerie said: "When I heard the bang I looked outside expecting to see plumes of smoke but there was nothing. Then we found this imprint on the window. It's double-glazed but even so I'm amazed it didn't shatter, and that the bird didn't break its neck.

"You can even see the outline of the beak where it hit the glass, but there were no feathers or blood left lying around afterwards."