RayFossil Insitu
I Really Dig Fossils! Do You?
A Tiny Bird is Found Sleeping in My Staghorn Fern
I have come home late at night before and several times now startled something hiding in the Staghorn fern that hangs from the aluminum awning by my side door. I have always assumed it was a bird, maybe a wren? Tonight it was very quiet and still. I turned the fern slowly around so the light from the pole security light shown onto where I previously noticed a small area which had exhibited small scratches. As my eyes adjusted I could see a tail and a ball of ruffled brownish feathers.
I went back inside and got the Sony Mavica and a small flashlight. From about a foot away I briefly shined the beam on the area so the digital camera could focus. I took a flash shot, fully expecting the brightness to scare it away. When I shown the beam again where it had been it still remained motionless as if asleep.
There were mosquitoes flying near it and as I watched saw one mosquito land on the bottom side of its tail. I then attempted a very close up shot to capture the way in which West Nile Virus is spread among the avian population - eventually to mammals like horses and humans. But I probably touched a fern frond causing the miniature bird to instantly explode out of there with a flurry of sound, vanishing into the darkness.
(Picture taken in San Antonio, Florida on December 5, 2002 2:25 a.m. Air temperature was in the low 60's.)