The Beautiful Fantail

The Fantail is a beautiful native bird of NZ. It is friendly and often comes close up to humans, only to dart away with incredible agility. It is unusual for a native bird of NZ to be outgoing. They also live happily near people, as long as there are plenty of trees around.

One day in late summer of 2009, I had set up a sprinkler to go from a nearly horizontal spray to vertical, going up and down repeatedly. As the water shot upright, it was next to a tree in the garden. As I came out to check the water to see if the sprinkler needed moving, a fantail had come along and was darting out of the tree into the water as it reached its zenith. He would flutter back and forth with the darting movements its wide tail feathers allow. When the water went down, he would perch in the tree. As it came up again, he would repeat the flight, tweeting happily while enjoying the shower.

I held back from moving the sprinkler as long as I could but eventually turned off the tap and moved it elsewhere away from the tree. As I did so, it’s tweet became almost squawk like, as if to say, “Hey, I was enjoying that”. It sat in the tree for some time seemingly telling me off. I felt bad, as I do love them. He then took off into the trees behind our house. I could have tried to photograph this birds antics, but I felt it would not have been easy to see.
I marvelled at its intelligence and seeming understanding of my taking it’s shower away. It left me in awe of our loving creator.