Birds: Beauty with Talons

Birds: Beauty with Talons — handcrafted bird jewelry by Macabre Gadgets

There are over 11,000 species of birds in existence today. Living descendants of dinosaurs, swarming, flapping their wings, cawing and trilling. Some are as unnoticeable as litter on a sidewalk, while others are so elusive that people spend days just trying to catch a glimpse of them. They are so numerous, and yet every one of them is so precious, playing its part in the planet’s everyday life.

Birds have held our attention for as long as our stories can trace. No matter which culture or mythology we look at, birds will be there, with all sorts of meanings and symbolism hidden behind them. They are so alien and fascinating to humans that all sorts of beliefs have sprung up around them. In medieval Europe, scholars insisted that certain birds retreated into lakes and rivers to spend the winter months underwater.

In Middle Eastern and Persian folklore, there was a legend about the Roc, a giant mythical bird of prey so enormous that it could pick up an adult elephant and carry it away for a meal.

We no longer believe that, just as we have abandoned the idea that bird droppings bring good luck.

But not all weird superstitions disappear with time. The ravens of the Tower of London are believed to be so important that the kingdom will fall if they ever disappear from the grounds. So, even today, their wings are clipped to prevent them from leaving.

Despite all the weird and sometimes unsettling mythology, we admire birds simply because they are beautiful. People can spend hours just observing them, enjoying their songs and dances. Looking for minuscule differences between species and memorising their feather patterns.

So, what makes them so hypnotising to the human eye? It seems to be everything combined. The beauty goes beyond their looks — it's in their songs and movements, in their behaviour and actions. And then there's the freedom birds represent — even the smallest one can easily cross boundaries humans cannot.

Macabre Gadgets Birds

Like many others before us, we have fallen under the spell of these ancient beauties. Their delicate but sturdy skeletons, beautifully designed to carry them freely across the wide sky. Their sharp and precise claws, hidden beneath a surface of soft, beautiful feathers. We see them as creatures full of harmony in every sense of the word, and our jewellery reflects this.

Swift wings, iconic sleek silhouettes, curved claws and scaly feathers are translated into the language of jewellery. We also take into account the symbolism that depictions of birds carry — gloomy and gorgeous black ravens, delicate aerodynamic skulls, sharp silver claws.

What we do is really quite simple: we look at these tireless, shifting and gliding elegant creatures and catch their essence mid-movement, depicting that moment in a piece of jewellery.

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