"Birds Don't Cry": Owl, gull and other guests of the bird shelter

EVERY DAY PHOTOGRAPHERS AROUND THE WORLD looking for new ways to tell stories or to capture what we previously did not notice. We choose interesting photo projects and ask their authors what they wanted to say. This week we are publishing the project "Vogels huilen niet" by photographer from the Netherlands Agnes Gesink. Since 2012, she has been working as a volunteer at the bird shelter "Vogelklas Karel Schot" in Rotterdam and has devoted her project to owls, gulls, ravens, pigeons and other birds.

I found out about the bird shelter "Vogelklas Karel Schot" quite by accident. I heard that they are looking for "nurse" - those who are ready to care for the chicks in the spring, at this time they need to be fed every 15 minutes. I have always loved furry animals, but after plunging into the world of birds, I also adore all birds. At the shelter, I not only feed the birds, but also give them medicine and clean the cages. It took me a few weeks to look around and learn how to perform my duties.

In "Vogelklas Karel Schot" get a variety of birds with different injuries. At first I planned to shoot all the new arrivals of "Vogelklas Karel Schot" throughout the year, but sometimes the birds came to the shelter so weak that they could not be touched in any case. The state of health of the wards was always in the first place for me! So I decided that I would take pictures of birds with different stories and injuries. They came to us because they crashed into buildings, got stuck in fishing nets or fell out of a nest. Most were injured because of people and their careless attitude to nature.

The purpose of my photo project is to make others think about their actions and their impact on wild birds. Birds are not cats or dogs, it is wrong to take them as pets. A healthy bird should not be caged. At the shelter, we treated only wild birds and released them into the wild when they recovered and gained enough strength. Some of the inhabitants of the shelter were very difficult to photograph, others - easier. Sick birds are almost always quiet and calm. Every day they are cleaned with cages and given medicines, so that the birds get used to the proximity of man and the fact that they are taken in their hands. During the shooting it was very important not to make noise and not to frighten the birds, and I literally had a couple of minutes to catch the necessary frame and not to put the birds in a stressful state.

I always liked to shoot people and explore identities. Working on the project "Birds do not Cry", I discovered a new exciting topic - the relationship between man and nature. This issue is particularly acute in the Netherlands, because we have almost no wildlife left - people managed to put a hand to everything and put the environment at the service of their goals.