The green stone cheetah statue stood there in pride as a stately speedster...
...but a little Fiscal bird found the cheetah's head an ideal spot to have a closer look at the grass for worms.
I made a new discovery here, as I didn't know that frequent changes in the weather from hot to cold, would cause the Paradise flowers to deliver excessive nectar. This was news to me, and it also shows why the sunbirds like the flowers so much. But let me start to show you the well-crafted, green stone cheetah sculpture I bet that the artist gave no thought about this event when he designed the statue :)
Both facing in the same direction as I walked around the statue.
And both giving me a sideways look, as I crossed over to take the tag picture.
Did I tell you that the paradise flowers release extra nectar during the quick weather changes?
Here below is a closer look at the line of nectar.
And another flower had a chunk of nectar sitting below the nectar pod.
Oh yes, the sunbirds love the paradise flowers and here below is an illustration of a little Southern Double-collared sunbird sipping nectar from a flower.
Then a Malachite sunbird also popped up behind another flower.
Finally, you can see the nectar drops at the tip of the beak, of the female Malachite. A thin piece of her straw-like tongue was also sticking out.
Nature holds many secrets, and thankfully we are discovering a few of them. We also took a walk next to the river at a spot where we have never been before, and it was amazing to see what the wind does to the very old trees. I think that the excessive rain that we had softened the soil, and that explains why the strong winds can so easily flip a very big tree over. The exposed root base of one of those trees is bigger than our car, to give you an idea of the size of the tree. But I will show you this in another post. In the meantime, I am happy to share our discovery of the excessive nectar produced by the paradise flowers. One would never expect the weather to play a role in its producing excessive nectar.
Such is life.
I hope you have enjoyed the pictures and the story.
Photos by Zac Smith-All Rights Reserved.
Camera: Canon PowershotSX70HS Bridge camera.
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