BANG!!

[miriam_e]

It sounded like someone threw a ball against my window. I knew what it was and went out to investigate. There, on the ground below the window, looking very zonked out, was a gorgeous little kingfisher. It would have fit in the palm of my hand.

The eyes are almost completely closed. The white patch where the eye would be is the eyelid. You can see the barest gleam of shiny black eye at the top of the white eyelid. The eyelid closes upwards, it seems.

I took a bunch of pictures without approaching too closely, then left the poor little guy to itself. It would be safe there. About an hour later I went out and peeked around the corner. The kingfisher was still there, but now had sufficient wits to fly away as if fired from a gun. These little guys move like they are rocket-assisted... hence the loud bang when this poor thing hit the window. I hope it recovers well. At least with all the rains lately it should have no problem catching food.

Comments

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen the little cutie since, but that isn't surprising -- kingfishers would tend to hang around the creek at the bottom of the valley instead of up here. I hope it fared okay. By the way it took off I'd say it recovered pretty well. The tip of the beak looked a little damaged, so I hope it suffered no lasting effects from the impact.

Certainly is gorgeous.
There are a lot of very pretty birds around here. The king parrots especially drip color and some of the beetles are mind boggling. I took some photos the other night of a large spider that wandered into my bathroom to die -- amazingly beautiful. And of course there are the green tree frogs with their big, dark, innocent eyes in that smart, handsome face -- body bright green above, creamy below.