"Padraig" wrote in message
news
It's 8:16 PM on a Friday evening. My wife and I went out to dinner at a
nice Italian restaurant earlier and we came back to open a bottle of wine
and
sit on our veranda watching the sun set. People who've seen some of my
shots realize I have a couple of bird feeders and a hummingbird feeder in
my
backyard - so it should be no real surprise to see a few friends drop by
at
sunset. Boy did we EVER have some friends drop by!

While we were watching the sun go down I was visited by the normal pair of
California Towhees and a few House Finches, then a really special event
happened. Our chairs were set up by one of my hummingbird feeders. I had
told her earlier about how much personality these guys have, but suddenly
a
male Anna's dropped in and came over to the feeder even though we were
within just 3 feet of it. He sampled it for 5 seconds, then backed off
and
came over to me and hovered maybe 18" in front of my face. I spoke to him
with some sort of stupid statement like "How are you doin' guy?" and
"How'd your day go?" he
seemed to want to hang around and have a conversation. He buzzed around
me
for a solid minute and looked at me from different angles, all while my
wife
sat just 2 feet away watching the whole thing. Finally she spoke to him
"Hi" and seemed
to spook him because he took off.

Then the Sharp Shinned Hawk I photographed this morning flew up and sat on
my fence not 20' from us and stayed there a minute before flying to a tree
in my neighbor's yard. Pretty soon he took off and found some other
entertainment down the block.

The next thing that happened was the neighborhood Mallards began flying
around us. Not just the male and female I've photographed and posted here
but a total of six. Up and down the green zone behind the house, between
all the tall pine and eucalyptus trees, all the while making muted quacks.
This lasted 15 minutes or so. Then a pair of them, a male and a female,
probably the same ones I've photogaphed, quietly dropped into my backyard
and hung around with us for a few minutes. After a while they decided to
say goodbye and flew over the fence into the fading evening light.

Fun. My feathered friends feel welcome in my back yard. And my wife is
stunned by the friendliness of the hummingbird toward me and its interest
in
me.
--
Paddy's Pig

Smashing story, thank you!

The only visitors to our outside table when we're there are our bantams :-)

Mary