You can never have enough...

[Oh_hunnihunni]

Fantails love it when we work in the garden, we stir up teeny bugs and they feast. They also love it when we peep peep back at them. Gorgeous creatures. I was amazed when I saw the South Island ones for the first time, they are much darker than our locals.

Are they? I don't think I ever saw one while up north, but they're lovely little creatures. When I was a kid there was quite a bit of superstition about them, if one flew into your house it was said to mean that someone was dead or about to die, but it seems not so much these days.

I was lying here early one bright sunny morning with the doors open to the deck when one flew in and perched on the lamp at the foot of my bed and chittered at me brightly while regarding me with one shiny black eye. Coco was snoozing a mere foot away but the little bird wasn't concerned and stayed long enough for me to ask it what the devil it thought it was doing inside...

These days it is the wax eyes keeping me amused, tempted by the half apples or cut oranges I hang in a wire whisk in the peach tree outside my window. Their gymnastics are fun to watch, and I live in hope that one tui who visited a week or so back will return. They are magnificent close up.