Lens-Artists Challenge #376: Wings
This week it’s Beth’s turn to host the Challenge, and she gets straight to the point: ‘I am challenging you to feature anything with wings‘. It’s a little dull and miserable around here at the moment, and even the eagle that soars over Oiã and the woods behind our house is staying in the warm, so instead I’ve got a few winged creatures from our trip to the Maldives in October.
The place where we stay is a small island resort. It’s actually teeming with wildlife, even if the most obvious signs are the humans sunbathing on the beach, paddling or snorkeling in the sea (or lounging around the several bars on the island). There’s a black bird, that makes an unholy high-pitched scream, which I always thought were the bats that fly around the island. The bats themselves are really elusive, and I’ve never managed a good image, or any image apart from this terrible photo when we came across one feeding in a tree a couple of metres above our heads.
There’s also a white parakeet, known as ‘Snowy’, who frequents a couple of the bars on the island. In the mornings s/he can be found in the Banyan restaurant, perched on the shoulder of a member of staff and eating from the plate of pastries and fruit specially prepared for them. In the afternoon, Snowy can be found in the Lohis bar, being fed by the staff there.
This crane is a bit of a thief. S/he will wander around the Beach Grill, looking for scraps of food, and gobbling down pieces of burger bun thrown at them (specifically burger buns, any meat is ignored). One day we were enjoying our lunch, and the crane was doing their normal patrol, walking slowly around the benches, seeing what people might have. On this day s/he zeroed in on our table, watching as we enjoyed our burger and chips (that’s french fries, just to clarify). Slowly s/he edged closer, and we watched in amusement. Then, s/he jumped up onto the bench next to my partner, paused for a second, then lunged at her plate, defly grabbing the top layer of the burger bun before retreating to safety. All we could do was stare at the crane, then laugh uncontrollably. From then on, whenever we saw the crane hovering around a table, we’d warn the occupants, ‘be careful, that bird will have your lunch.’
It rained a helluva lot during our holiday, though it was warm rain and it didn’t spoil our enjoyment. We would walk around the island, clutching our umbrellas and dodging the puddles, enjoying the vivid greens that the rain-soaked leaves would reveal. One day, ambling back to our little villa, I happened to glance over and spotted this wonderful parrot on the veranda roof of a small building. Like Snowy, I don’t think this parrot was a pet in the strictest term, just an occupant of the island who realised that they had a good thing going mixing with humans.
In the conclusion of her post, Beth asked: ‘When you think of wings do you think of birds, insects, angels and airplanes? Maybe you think of … fantasy beings like dragons and fairies.’ Well, there were dragons on the island too, but sadly they didn’t have wings.
Themes for the Lens-Artists Challenge are posted each Saturday at 12:00 noon EST (which is 4pm, GMT) and anyone who wants to take part can post their images during the week. If you want to know more about the Challenge, details can be found here, and entries can be found on the WordPress reader using the tag ‘Lens-Artists’.
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