My Number One Bird

The black fantail has visited my garden almost daily for about 17 months. This is unusual because, for one thing, black fantails make up around 4% of the fantail population in the South Island, and for another, until last winter no fantail had stuck around for more than 3 or 4 weeks spring and autumn on their way to somewhere else. Furthermore, fantails are short-lived, maybe not much more than a year. With all this can you blame me for being totally delighted each time I see it. And when we meet it often darts about me very close, so that all I see is a dark streak. Today it buzzed me when I had a camera. There was no time for checking settings. Just one quick click and it was on the move again. The fanned tail is not quite fully open.