Nope, I didn’t mean “funny” in the title above … I did mean “bunny”. My latest visitors here at home have been a bunny rabbit and a woodpecker. Everyone seems to love to come and visit!
The other day, I was sitting in my living room one morning right after breakfast, quietly reading my book. I paused for a moment and looked up, and looked out my living room window. Well, my my my … where did you come from?
I hadn’t noticed the bunny rabbit out there when I walked over to my living room chair earlier and sat down, but it might have been there the whole time. When I finally did notice the rabbit, it was obviously sound asleep. I watched it for awhile, then got out of my chair, walked to my computer room, got my camera, checked the battery, and turned the camera on.
Back in the living room, I found the rabbit was still there and still sound asleep. The only movement it made was to twitch its nose every so often.
The color of the dirt and pebbles and dried leaves seemed to make a perfect hiding place … right out in the open.
It opened one eye (below) … just once during the 30 minutes that I watched it … it didn’t move any other muscle that I could tell. Even the ears didn’t move.
And then it went back to sleep. And I went back to my book. When I next looked up about an hour later, the bunny rabbit was gone.
My next visitor arrived a couple of days later. It’s the woodpecker that I mentioned in the first paragraph above. I was outside working in a flowerbed alongside the back of my house when I noticed a bird flying back and forth between two nearby trees. I stopped what I was doing and watched the bird. It soon landed in one of the trees and appeared happy with its choice because it stayed there for a few minutes. Of course, I went inside and got my camera. The bird was still in that tree when I came back outside.
But oh it was high up and there were so many branches in front of the bird that my camera continued to auto-focus on the branches, not on the bird.
So I very stealthily moved around to the far side of the tree to try to get a better view of the bird. And I started chirping/clicking so the bird would know I was there, although I bet those birds know a whole lot more than I think they do.
The other side of the tree (above) provided a view without as many branches, but there were still branches in the way and it was mighty dark on this side.
So I went even further around the tree, still very slowly and carefully.
I found a better view yet, although the bird was still in the shadows.
On around even further I went. By now I wasn’t moving very slowly at all. That bird didn’t seem to mind a bit that I was wandering around on the ground below it. So I just tromped on around.
Finally! A clear view of the bird, with the bird in bright sunshine. Hallelujah!
But what a funny thing it was doing. It’s chest feathers were spread out on both sides and it was just hanging there on the side of the tree. Hmmm, what’s up?
Ah ha! No it’s not napping. It’s grooming. Over and over and over, one side, then the other side. And it always closed its eyes when it did that.
After a while, I moved a little further around the tree because the sun had moved.
By this time, I was standing immediately next to the tree trunk and pretty much right under the bird. It didn’t seem to care. It just kept on cleaning and cleaning and cleaning. Some days are like that I guess.
One handsome, and very clean, Red-breasted Sapsucker Woodpecker.
These two visitors, the bunny and the bird, were wonderful. More visitors please. 🙂
Next blog post … camping!