Okay,I admit it; I like cute birds. Lots of times when I'm on guided hikes and everyone stops to stare breathlessly for what seems like hours at some plain old bird sitting on a branch or another bird that's dawdling across the track, I do tend to get bored after, well, 10 seconds.
But give me a cutie-pie chick or duckling and I'm all agog and can watch for hours.
J, my swimming pal, told me that she always keeps a camera on her car, so I thought "Why not? I have an old digital camera.".
In February on my way to Whakatane, I found parent swans with their babes (cignets?) on the shores of Lake Rotoiti. The mama and papa were a bit scary ("Get away from me! Get away!") but, oh goodness, I wanted to scoop the babies up and cuddle them to my ample bosom.
Last Sunday, I'd parked my car at the bottom of the (horrific) zig-zag to the right side of Lyall Bay beach, and was prepared to stagger up the zig-zag to get to the main track over the hills. As I gathered up my drink bottle, backpack, rain-jacket, rain-pants, phone, cardy, beanie, cap, sunblock (after all, the hike would take me all of, perhaps, two and a half hours! - I had a bigger bag than when I went to England for 6 weeks - my bag then weighed only 3kg). I glanced out the front car window and saw there was a huge amount of water in the gutter that was about three metres long- and there were a dozen or so birds - blackbirds, thrushes, sparrows - bathing happily in the water. They were splashing and squeaking, and having a fine old time. I just managed to get off one photo before a car came in front of me and disturbed them.
No comments:
Post a Comment