After having my last photo trip into nature cut short due to an unwelcome present from a passing seagull, I braved the risk and went out again, this time to the Botanic Gardens.

They don’t have seagulls there.

Thank goodness.

They did have this guy, though. For a good part of the afternoon, I wanted to shoot (photographically only, please let me clarify) one of these little black birds with the red wings, but they were quick, nothing more than a rustle, then a waving branch, then a dart of black in the sky. I’d decided it probably wasn’t going to happen, when I came across a little boy, about ten, maybe, possibly eleven, with large, round blue eyes. I thought he was holding up his camera to take a picture of his mom, who was standing in the dappled light under a tree. He held a single finger to his lips, warning me to be quiet, and looked up, and there was my friend.

Not only was this bird not frightened, he posed, moving
around his branch.

He watched me watching him.

He opened his beak, puffed his chest, and let out a call, once, twice, then again. I think he was saying, “Hey guys, come take a look at this,” because his buddies came by, but they weren’t so interested. Without even a look over his avian shoulder, he took off to bushes unknown.

Though the gardens aren’t yet as lush and flower-laden as they will be in a few weeks, there was lots of bird-poop-free beauty.

Like the poppies.

And these white flowers I think are a kind of clematis, but
look like they’d be comfortable on the alien planet of your choice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Textures like this:

And like this:

And all kinds of strange light.

In all, the weather was changeable, searing one moment, threatening the next, and the wedding parties many, and always unexpected, even when you know that June means the gardens will be dotted with white dresses and the supporting ones in ever-more-interesting colors. But I escaped, poop-free, and I call that a win.