For our Self-Publishing project we had to come up with some Guerrilla Marketing that'd catch people's eye and let them know a little about our project. So, since the main story I was illustrating was about a dead dove, I made a dead bird and slathered him with blood! (fake, of course)
I named him Frederick.
You too can make your own dead bird! First, you'll need a ball of styrofoam, a bag of feathers, some hot glue, wire, Sculpey, and paint. First carve the styrofoam into a rough bird shape; ovalish with a small head and a sunken chest. Then painstakingly glue on the feathers (my feathers totally look fake because I didn't overlay them in the correct patterns. I was being lazy). Fashion some legs out of wire and build them up to look like real bird legs with the Sculpey, and do the same with the beak. Then paint them, add a glazed Sculpey eye, and you have your dead bird!
