Close Encounters of the Bird Kind (Or is it 'Going Cuckoo'?)

Yesterday I spent some time with a friend in the Umgeni Bird Park in Durban to take photographs of some of the indigenous birds. What a soul-soothing place! The sound of waterfalls and  happy birds nearly drown out the traffic. Impossible to be there and feel stressed at the same time!

While in one of the walk-in cages, a Guira Cuckoo unexpectedly perched on my head and started pecking! (What was it about stopping a bird from nesting in your hair?....)

While I was trying to focus my camera on the Dikkops, a Guinea Fowl undid my laces...

Trying to photograph the Ground Hornbill, it picked up a morsel of food and kept offering it to me, fluttering its long eyelashes...

I also managed to get sonme of the kind of photos that I was looking for, so I'm looking forward to doing some more bird watercolours soon! (Just need to finish the series fo Zulu figures first). And then there's the large canvas waiting for Ngunis....