Pigeon Clock

We have all seen, I hope, birds perching on telegraph lines, neatly spaced, looking for all the world like a living abacus. However, instead of learning to count on them, I propose using them to completely get away from both the analog and digital metaphors for telling the time.

Using the magic of e-paper (q.v.), sounds chips and Flash animation, this square clock shows birds perched on a row of telegraph wires. The top wire shows the hours, the second and third the minutes, the fourth and fifth the seconds. The birds are grouped in threes, to make it easy to count them at aglance.

Every second, a new bird flutters up and settles on the bottom wire. Once there are nine birds, the tenth bird settles on the fourth wire, and all the birds on fifth take flight and fly away. Likewise, the minutes and hours.

If this is not clear, please see the linked pictures of the clock at various times. With the pictures, imagine the gentle sounds of the fluttering of wings as the birds settle or fly away, the sounds proportional to the number of birds in the air.

Options include turning the seconds off, having a bell or cannon startle the birds on the hour, and turning the sounds off altogether. And also for showing AM/PM (haven't entirely figured that one out yet; maybe a sun or moon to indicate whether it's night or day).