I have seen these small birds flying around quite a few times already in the city and even a couple of times in my back yard. But while we were up in the hills more than a week ago, I had a few really close encounters with them. They are super cute, and they seem absolutely unafraid and soo curious. One was hovering near my husband for quite a while while he was fishing. Almost landing on the fishing rod. It flew around him, up and down and just seemed to really check him out. At one point his bait got caught in a tree and he had to carefully shake it for a while to get the bait out, and that was apparently the best thing ever according to the fantail. I guess that my husband was stirring up all sorts of insects while getting his bait back from the tree, and that is, of course, the reason the fantail seemed to be following him around so closely.
While walking back to the car on the same riverbed, another couple of fantails were following us girls. One even landed on a branch we held out. They were totally unafraid. They seemed to be checking us out, but I guess that we too were stirring up insects from the tall grass, and so we provided them with an easy buffet.
They move very fast, so it is difficult to get any decent photos of them. They flick here and then there, opening and closing that tail of theirs into a fan and then back again. Absolutely delightful!
A few sketches in my small art journal.
This is how they hop around, fanning their tail. It's not difficult to guess how they got their name I suppose, Fantail.
These photos all from around the house where we stayed on our weekend away I wrote about in my last post. They had a few spots that they came and sat on more often, so I had the opportunity to get at least a few decent shots of them. I can see a few Fantail paintings coming along in the near future! 😁