Show Me A Photo (SMAP) 130 - Playing With Fire Is Life Or Death

Hello Feathered Friends lovers. It's week 130 for this so enjoyable challenge, the Show Me A Photo or SMAP Contest, hosted by @nelinoeva. Check this one out here and you might just get interested to join in the fun!

This week's theme is:

FUNNY

I saw this one in an art exhibition that I went to a few months ago. It was in one of those exhibits that my daughter's art group held at the La Herencia Art Gallery here in our city, Davao City. The title of the piece is Life Or Death and is a painting in oil. Here's the tag as shown below the painting.

I found it so funny, really. I thought, "Now why on earth did the artist think of such a thing? What was his inspiration for this?" I took a couple of pictures thinking I might have a use for it in the future. Well, I guess the future is now here (lol)!

I am still intrigued by the painting though. What is the real reason for this particular artwork? Is it a warning to the public about the harmful effects of smoking? Clearly the surgeon general's warning about smoking has not yet reached birds. I was not able to discuss this with the artist as he wasn't around when I visited so I wouldn't really know.

Anyway, now that the theme for this week is out, I decided to enter it as it is the funniest photo of birds I have in my archive. But still, I wanted to do a little bit more of research for this post for the write up. So I went to the internet to find out more about birds and smoking. Now would you believe there are articles about this and I found them very interesting.

First, I found an article about the harmful effects of smoking to birds. Birds, apparently have a different lung make up and capacity than humans which makes them very vulnerable to cigarette smoke. Something about being unable to filter out toxins from the smoke. Their hearts beat much faster and inhalation of smoke makes their heart go even faster. And lastly, exposure to nicotine itself from cigarette butts and or from anything that have been exposed to nicotine can cause damage to these birds especially when they preen themselves.

However, another study showed that despite the ill effects of cigarette smoking on birds, some urban bird species like the finch and sparrows fill their nests with used cigarette butts. Researchers were wondering why this was so and they found out that these used butts were very effective in warding off parasites from the nests! Here's the link to the study Source.

After reading all these, I now wonder if this is the reason for the artist in doing the painting? That in spite of the health hazards of cigarettes, there is always a benefit to it. Playing with fire if you smoke can mean death but somehow, these urban birds find life in it. I'll leave it at that.

For this contest, my entry is the photo below.

All for now. Thanks for visiting and hopefully, reading my post. Hope you like it. Best of luck to all participants. Entries have been really funny! Hard time judging again. Stay safe everyone and enjoy the weekend.

(All photos are mine.)