I made a quick trip to the grocery store a mile or so away this morning. On the way back as I cut through the park I spotted this cute black phoebe perched on a tree watching my approach.
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| A black phoebe (Moucherolle noir) I saw months ago in the park. Alas I didn't get a picture of the one I met today. |
Black phoebes are this area's sparrows. There are always a bunch of them around rustling in the bushes and on tree limbs. So, though I'm always saying hello and waving to them (I know they probably think me wacky, but I like watching how they react to that) I hadn't taken a photo of one in a long time... and certainly not this one this morning. He got a bit nervous and hopped to a higher limb as I got close. Then when he saw that I was not one of those nasty cats with the bad habit of looking at him as if he is a piece of Tartar steak, he started pecking at a bunch of leaves nearby. I was almost under him when he pecked loose a little flower -- it drifted a little in the gentle breeze and landed on my open fingers just as its dislodger hopped away into someone's backyard bush.
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| You do bring me flower, you do sing me love song... |
Being a rational dude that I am, I'd have no trouble thinking that it is just a particularly nice sort of accident. Sentimentally, though, I'd like to think it a little present from a bird that appreciates weirdos who try to talk to him in a strangely unmelodic language as if he would abandon his infinitely more pleasant songs just for the sake of associating with a featherlessly slow-moving lump of ground-bounded biped.
Maybe it was a female black phoebe, in which case I shall now call her 'Carmen,' and hope that doing so wouldn't condemn me to the fate of Don José (though exceptions can be made if I then get to look and sing like Jonas Kaufmann with my new featherly friend transforming into one Vesselina Kasarova... almost anything is worth that!!!).
2 comments:
oh mister Smorg, i LOVE this post, and thank you for the name of this bird, I always see one of them on my neighbor's yard and plenty here when I walk on Murphy Canyon Road, but unlike sparrows, they always travel alone!! So it's a Black Phoebe, now I know it's species, every time i come across one i feel is good luck :)) as you remember I used to put seeds for the birds, so plenty of sparrows, mourning doves, blue scrub jays and others used to visit me, included a hawk who wanted to eat them all, but my little patio was a mess... and after too many 'accidents' where Herr Gato and Frau Kitty actually treated the birds like a Tartar Steak, I gave up and thought was better not to put seeds anymore... still the black phoebe always comes around, only standing on high branches, i bet he's laughing at Herr Gato from above...
lovely post mister Smorg, and hey!! it wasn't an accident, he did give you a flower :) and NO you are not the only one waving at birds, i say hello to them when they cross my path, and i can almost see them smiling back! :)
and funny!! my password word to post is excat, related eh?
Hola bella Bere:
I'm very glad to be of service! :oD They (the black phoebes) seem to be everywhere, ay? I especially like them. Perhaps I'm reading too much into it, but I think they are really curious birds. I've had one hopping along from tree to tree with me as I walk through the park every so often. Then I'd get to the end of the park and he'd stay in the park tree as I took off the main road.
Heh, I know, it's hard watching our feline alter-egos acting felinely with their food species sometimes, ay?
I used to go hunting with the cat that stayed with me when I was going through high school. I called him Irwin, but I'm sure he called himself by a different name. He was particularly good at anticipating a bird's take off flight path, and would fix himself in such a spot that the bird literally flew right into him as it tried to fly off.
Thanks for telling me about your waving and talking to the birds, too. Now I don't feel like such a lunatic, 'cause you sure aren't one! :oD
Hope all is well up in...er... North Park?
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