Tuesday, March 8, 2011

A cool shower on a hot day

It has been a very long, hot and dry summer. At the end of another hot day I like to go up the back yard, turn on the reticulation in my vegetable garden and then settle back to watch the show. Within minutes of the sprinklers starting a flurry of small birds come flocking in. They are a small dark green bird we call Silver-eye. Soon there are a dozen birds gathering in the bushes on two sides of the vegetable patch. After a quick chirpping discussion they swoop down to enjoy a cool shower. Some like to just swoop through the spray then back to the safety of a thick bush to preen. The boldest of the little birds will come right down to land in the plants closest to the sprayjet. They ruffle their feathers in delight or seem to be rubbing against the wet leaves or catching the waterdroplets rolling off the the leaves around them. The show lasts for about half an hour before they head off again. The little bird in the photograph above is perched among the leaves of Kohl Rabi plants.

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