Cloven Viscount - vultures and crows have now given way to storks and flamingos and cranes

This piece is based on some of the opening moments of Italo Calvino's novella, The Cloven Viscount. Here is an excerpt of the passage:

"What can draw such birds to a battlefield, Kurt?" he asked.
"They eat human flesh too, nowadays," replied the squire, "since the fields have been stripped by famine and the rivers dried by drought. Vultures and crows have now given way to storks and flamingos and cranes."
My uncle was then in his first youth, the age in which confused feelings, not yet sifted, all rush into good and bad, the age in which every new experience, even macabre and inhuman, is palpitating and warm with love of life.
"What about the crows then? And the vultures?" he said. "And the other birds of prey? Where have they gone?" He was pale, but his eyes glittered.
The squired, a dark-skinned soldier with a heavy moustache, never raised his eyes. "They ate so many plague-ridden bodies, the plague got 'em too," and he pointed his lance at some black bushes, which a closer look revealed were not made of branches, but of feathers and dried claws from birds of prey.

I had so much fun making this piece. When I was looking for photos to use as reference for this piece, I was surprised by the number of photos of horse carcasses. I have drawn a lot of horses in the past, but never a dead one before.

Watercolor and gouache on paper. Original is 18"x24". This piece was all done at once, on one piece of paper. Below are a some details of the animals, as well as scan of the pencil version I did before painting everything in.