Olive Backed Sunbird

So now here I am, reporting another bird spotting right in my own home. I do not want to sound like Gerald Durrell, but such incidents really do amaze me.

As human beings, we keep our lives compartmentalised - farm animals are kept far away, hidden from us. Goldfish is kept in the fish tank in the corner. Pet hamsters stay in cages.

But we fail to realise that we are just 1 species in this earth filled with millions of different species. And as much as we breach the pristine rainforests that they have been living in for centuries, they in turn do not see our whitewashed buildings and noisy roads as exclusive human territory.

It's heartwarming that there are wild animals willing to make contact with us evil humans. Don't for a moment take that for granted. Would our neighbourhoods be as lovely without the chirping birds, cats busking under car engine heat and those lizards that make their stealth sorties across our walls?

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So this evening, my dad was asking which of us had placed a bird figurine on our flat gate. We keep many bird figurines throughout our home, so my dad had assumed that it was one of them.

My mom said no.

I said no.

My brother wasn't at home but he wasn't home recently enough to have placed the bird there.


I was curious as to who had put that figurine there - was it a neighbour? - so I opened the door and took a look.

And right then I was joking to my mom about how there were so many bird figurines at home we can't tell which are real and fake.



It was a yellow-green ball of feathers. The wings fluttered just so subtly I said out in surprise: 'it's real!'

I grabbed my camera and took photos. Strangely the bird didn't budge even when I opened the gate. I took more photos, and the bird simply looked around lazily at the flies surrounding the corridor lamp.

Such incidents make me feel small. I'm just one little part of this whole existence thing. I'm just one of 7 billion people of a single species out of a million.



Right now, the sunbird is probably still perched there, lazily admiring the abominations that the human race had peppered this planet with.