Ever since I became interested in my wife's garden I became more aware of so many things in and around it that I would normally just cast aside as mundane and trivial. When my wife bonsaied a tamarind sapling 29 years or so ago I wasn't even aware of it until the last two years when I actually "saw it" for the first time. "Wow, that plant is almost 30 years old? You mean it was growing ever so slowly under my nose and I didn't know it?" And so I began to learn the different plants and flowers she had in the garden. And not only that. I became more aware of the different creatures that either live in or visit the garden. One such visitor is a very small brown bird, or so I thought it was brown.
I am a neophyte feathered friend with a limited knowledge about birds. Now this one looked brown from afar, so I assumed it was a sparrow because all sparrows are brown. I think. Well anyway this bird would always whizz by everytime I water the garden, landing on the plants I water, then flitting away when I approach. It was so difficult to even take a picture because he alway made sure to fly away fast and stay at least a mile away from me. The pictures I was able to take of him were only from afar like the photo above. (I only have a low end cell phone and no telephoto lens camera.)
This went on for so many weeks and soon I gave up on him, concentrating instead on the chicken and her chicks that live by the side of our neighbor's house. They were much easier to photograph. But something unusual happened recently. It was while I was watering the plants on a sunny morning. Mr. Brown Bird was again present, chirping and tweeting away noisily as usual. But the strange thing was he did not fly away when I approached her. She was perched on our cyclone wire fence and just stayed there motionless. I hurriedly took out my camera and photographed him while holding the hose with my other hand. Look.
Right after I took the pictures he shifted and I thought he was going to fly off to the electric wires overhead. But no, he stayed put in his new position and did not fly away until I was able to take a couple more shots.
"He wasn't just colored brown!", was my first reaction. His body was yellow green. And his beak was long, pointed, slim and curved unlike a sparrow. Oh what a joy. I finally got me photos of a colorful bird. And to top it all he seemed to be unafraid of me anymore. He was bolder and he now perches closer to me and stays put much longer, allowing me to get closer pictures of him.
I must have been less than 8 feet away from him on the last 3 photos above. And he didn't seem to to be bothered by my closeness. In fact he even gave me time to take a video of him. See below.
He actually was joined in by another friend of his who must have been emboldened by his demeanor towards me. I told my daughter about all these and she did not believe me until she joined me one morning to water the plants. Soon as Mr. Brown saw my daughter he stayed miles away from us and wouldn't even come near. So I asked my daughter to leave. When she did Mr. Brown swooped in, frolicked with the water, chirped and tweeted happily, entertaining me. That's when I took the video footage I showed above. And the last proof of his friendship is this photo which I took just 6 feet away from him.
And this one, with his friend.
I found out that my friend is an Olive Backed Sun Bird. Hopefully this friendship will last and we can have many happy wet mornings together. Maybe he can invite more friends.
Well that's all I guess for this post. I had a really fun time doing this. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Photos are all mine though I admit they're far from being as good as what most of you post. But as the saying goes: Practice makes perfect. I'll get there. Someday.