Birds and Bananas

The bell rang and I ran to my math class.  Instead of people leaving, they were STAYING after class working out problems on the board, getting ready for the big test.  My teacher scoffed at me for coming in right after class had ended.  I looked for my 200 pound math book but it wasn’t there.  I said to him, “I guess you don’t care about a missing math book, right?”  He replied, with his arms crossed, “NO I DON’T!”  Drag.  I thought to myself, “I should just drop this stupid class, I’m going to fail anyway.  I hate to buy another boo…..”  THUD.  I slowly come out of my dream and wonder what that noise was.  I look at the clock: 6:15.  BIRD.  God, I hate getting up.  I peer out the curtains, eyes blurry…can’t see anything.  I go to the living room and do the same.  Yep!   I run outside, look around to make sure nobody can see me then retrieve the bird.  

Well, well…if it isn’t ole Blue.  I was just talking about you yesterday!  The bananas on the tree have ripened and the birds were getting their share.  I saw two of these blue birds on there and I rarely see them at all.  Usually they’re together and I can never get a picture because they fly so fast and seem to be very skittish.  I took the picture above from the bedroom and once they saw me move, they both flew away and never came back.  Until today.

What a beauty!  Oh, and it smelled good too, just like the other bird did!  I have no idea what kind it is (might be an Indigo Bunting…correction it’s a Blue-gray tanager).  The poor bird had latched onto a fairly large rock that I could not pry from his little foot.  He had the death grip going on my other finger and I had plenty of time to admire his beauty.  The color of the feathers were amazing, I wish I could have spread his wing out and taken a picture too, but alas, I don’t have 3 hands.   I could have done it while he was sitting on my fat thigh, I suppose, but I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to think about it at the time.  Eventually, I took a banana off the tree and offered it, but he didn’t seem interested.  A good 30 minutes had passed already and as I put the banana beside me, the bird flew off and the rock dropped by my foot.  Going back to bed was futile at that point.

The bananas are awesome here.  They’re big and fat and perfect.  They are literally bursting at the seams and I prefer to keep them on the tree instead of cutting them down.  They seem to ripen too fast and all at once if I do that.  Plus, I like to share with the birds since I can’t possibly eat them all.  

I had taken one off and put it on the bench to see if it would attract any birds.  When I passed by it later, the only thing attracted was this cute little ‘banana bug’.  I swear it looks like he evolved to eat the bananas.

So I watched as the birds got their fill yesterday morning.  The tree chickens made an appearance.  They’re so funny to watch because they’re clumsy and don’t fly very well.  They live in the trees over here and the chicks are super cute….chirping loud every few seconds to let mom know where they are.  I haven’t seen the chicks lately and I’m afraid they are good hunting for the cats around here.  

The red rump cacique is very common.  Often (but not lately) he will tap on the window in the kitchen.  It used to drive me crazy but now he doesn’t do it anymore.  As I watched him yesterday on the tree, two others like him were nearby and he got SUPER fluffy, which I’ve never seen before.

Oh, and one last picture from the house about a week or so ago with a cool sunset.