Fantails

For many years fantails have visited my garden for two or three weeks in spring, and again in autumn, on their way to somewhere else. Last season, however, a pair visited almost every day right through from spring to autumn. One was the common pied version and the other was a rare black one. I didn’t see the pied one during winter, but the black one visited most days. With spring the pied one returned and the two of them spend so much time in my garden I suspected they were residents, not visitors.

Today I was able to capture the pied one collecting nesting material and passing it to the black one, who flew off into the trees with it. I don’t know which is the male and which the female. The pied one is distinctive in that the tail has a lot more white than normal. Now I see that some of the feathers are short.

I blipped the black one last autumn.