Drama in the Garden

Drama in the Garden

Mazal tov—the sunbirds in our garden are parents! Today I found the nest, with the chicks inside. (Click on the images to see a larger version.)

But being sunbird parents can be rather difficult, especially when you share your living quarters with two cats. I can always tell when the cats are in the garden now because the sunbirds shriek their Predator! Predator! warning and fly about frantically, trying to frighten the cats away. Here are two photos of Daddy Sunbird guarding the chicks. In the second, he is actually on the nest.

Here’s Mama:

And here are the reasons that Mom and Dad Sunbird are so upset:

Everything’s fine so far, but I don’t envy the sunbirds one bit. They’ve been shrieking their warning and flying about for hours on end. They must be exhausted, poor things.

To the cats’ credit, they haven’t touched the nest, at least as far as I know.

(Check out this week’s Friday Ark at The Modulator. This week’s Carnival of the Cats will be at Watermark on Sunday.)