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Of bulbul and queens

It's the Friday blues. I've been sitting in front of my laptop with no idea what to write. So what better way to joggle the mind than to look at photos.

Say hello to this yellow-vented bulbul bird (Pycnonotus goiavier). This bird was probably waiting for his partner that time. I just kept clicking and clicking. I like this one particularly because it seemed to be posing for the camera. Right after I took this shot, it turned its back on me. I see these birds come in pairs in the morning and late afternoon. Bulbul birds, maya (Eurasian Tree Sparrow) and olive-backed sunbirds are some of the birds that would hang out in our yard especially on the bamboo trees. I don't know why they are so noisy during the early morning hours around 5:00 a.m. and late afternoons. Any other time of the day, they would just be perched somewhere silently.

Just like this other bulbul bird that I took a photo of one time. It was perched in one of the branches that I almost missed it.

These are Eurasian Tree Sparrow which some would locally call "maya." These birds are easily startled and would fly away. When I was taking photos of them, I would have to be slow in my movements or I would stay in one place and wait. Photography does really need patience and timing.

We do have a lot of flowers growing in our yard. The collage above (edited in Canva) shows some of those that you can see in our yard. They don't bloom all at once. Those photos were taken over the years whenever I decided to take photos of them. There are many more but these two flowers below are my favorites.

Of all the flowers that one can see in our yard, the Queen of the Night is what I love the most. It is also called Night-Blooming Cereus. Ture to it's name, it only blooms throughout the night. Someone in noise said that plants are more active at night. you will be surprised to see the evidence of the change they have undergone overnight. I remember creating a time lapse of this. There was a drizzle then but I still pushed through with it. I just can't remember where I uploaded the video. Again, one must be patient to do time lapse. Probably around 8:00 p.m., the flower will start to every so slowly open. It would fully bloom by midnight and would start to wilt by dawn.

This is one of the photos that I love. I placed a brighter light behind it for this was taken at night and used a softer flash to illuminate everything else. I'm not sure if I posted this in noise. Beauty does fade away quickly sometimes.

This St. Christopher Lily is just so pretty to look at. Unlike the Queen of the Night, this flower blooms longer. Both of these flowers have a nice scent to them, the Queen of the Night stronger of course. There are many flowers in our yard. These were taken two and three years ago. Now that my sister has more time to garden and take care of plants, there are more flowering plants. The hibiscus that I planted had flowers then which she sent me a photo of. The lead image was a collection of flowers that I picked and place them in a drum full of water.

It's the weekend again. I just noticed that I have been here in read for 2 months already. It felt like I was here longer than that. I guess that is how I am enjoying this platform. I hope you have all great plans for this weekend and may you all fulfill them all safely. It's now a few minutes more before Friday ends. I bid you all good night for tomorrow I plan to go for a walk. Come join me tomorrow!

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