Birthday Silvereyes

I've been having a great time over the past few days (snow + great food + fun coding!), despite a few minor hiccups (an early morning start to tutor 2 labs yesterday, and a burst tire the day before). However, what really made my day yesterday was when the lovely silvereyes treated me to a special display of fluff-ball cuteness.

After lunch, I decided to share the love on my birthday and give the birds some bread to enjoy. And enjoy they did...

 A "standoff" between the silvereyes and sparrows

Would you look at that! A silvereye sitting (!) on the bread!

The Panel

At one point, we had something like 4 silvereyes on the ground at the same time! I also managed to quite a few neat shots of birds in various "action" poses:

In quite a few shots, I caught the silvereyes with mouths open wide, and their long tongues doing some weird things...

 Making a flap - A straight-in landing...

Flying away

 Mouth open swallowing

Nicking off with the bounty

 A starling (what ugly brutes) flipping the bread

 A whole bunch of birds fleeing, as the piece of bread bounced and flipped

Yo vuelo

Nostros volamos

After the bread was gone, the really interesting displays began... At least two different silvereyes took turns to fly over to the tree by my window, and proceeded to hop around, fluffed up like little plump fluff balls, showing their appreciation!

#1 - (It's feathers were still obviously quite wet from all the rain/snow activity we had over the weekend, giving it it's slightly battered/greasy look)

#2 - The beak on this one is really big and strong

Peekaboo!

 Nice and plump, with a big long pointy beak

So plump and fluffy - like a tennis ball!

#3 - The soggy ball

#4 - Another plump tennis ball

#5 - Nice and comfy

But that's not all!

I caught a few silvereyes hopping around in the bottlebrush in front of my window (despite it not currently having any flowers; if I could get hold of the specimen in the Botanic Gardens by the Avon river,  beside the Rolleston Ave carpark bridge and which produces large red flowers in June/July, that would be even nicer!), merrily exploring the bush.

And then, I saw them, all fluffed up even more, sitting in the camelia enjoying the mid-afternoon sun.... Cute doesn't begin to describe how adorable they looked, all plumped up in the bush as if they were wearing granny's old fur coats

Awww...

Spot the birdies - Hint, there are two of them here!

And finally, just wait till you catch sight of this last one perched right on top...

Woah... that looks positively "wood pigeon" like (aka the famed "keruru" that is a real Maori delicacy... or was, until they nearly hunted the birds to extinction, and are now only able to serve that dish on "culturally significant" occasions after getting a permit)


Thank you silvereyes for your wonderful visit!  That was one of my favourite gifts this year :D