I’m getting used to bizarre animal encounters in Africa now. Here’s a story about one that occurred in our very own backyard yesterday.
I was out talking to Davie about the yard when Nia runs up to me and screams “Mommy, come see the pretty birdie.” I tried putting her off, to no avail, so I left Davie for a few minutes to go see the bird. Imagine my surprise when she leads me to a rather large, brightly-colored bird.
I said to her, “Let’s see how close we can get.” As we crept toward it, the bird seemed totally unphased. At some point I started to get worried because a normal bird would definitely have taken off by this point. That’s when I told her to go get Davie because I thought something was wrong with it.
Davie came over right away and to my surprise just picked the bird right up (not something I ever would have done). The bird barely resisted. Davie wasn’t able to identify anything noticeably wrong with the bird, so he tried tossing it into the air to get it to fly off.
That didn’t get us anywhere either. For some reason, this bird wanted to stay put. Here’s a bit closer look at our lovely visitor.
Davie took the opportunity to let Nia see the bird up close. She was enchanted by it’s bright colors (as we all were). Such a beautiful bird and one I’ve never seen before!
I had so many questions… Was it hurt? Was it formerly someone’s pet? What should we do with it?
Nia wanted to try feeding it, but the bird wasn’t having it. So we just gently set it back on the ground in the hopes that it would fly off. When Nick came home from work I took him to the backyard to see if the bird was still there. Sadly, it was, which probably meant something was wrong. I left to go back inside but as Nick stayed with the bird, he saw it stop breathing. Unbeknownst to me, he decided to give the bird a proper burial (in his suit, mind you!) so it wouldn’t get torn apart by the crows. I thought that was very sweet.
Rest in peace, backyard birdie friend. Thank you for sharing your beauty with us!
