A SPECIAL PRESENT FOR MY BIRTHDAY by sangwann

A SPECIAL PRESENT FOR MY BIRTHDAY

The Almighty sent me a present for my birthday and a special one, too. Enlarge for best view. Here is the story:
On the eve of my birthday, I decided to go for a walk in the countryside looking for nature shots. I had hoped to catch some butterfly or bee or even some bird. I took many landscape and wild flower photos but didn’t see any flying creatures except for the occasional swallow that passed by like a jet airplane.
After a lovely walk I got back to the car, started the engine and began the trip home, when, voila’ I saw these birds flying around, there were around 30 to 40 of them and some came to rest on the power lines near to where I was. “My gosh!” I said to myself, “those aren’t pigeons and they are too big to be house sparrows.” So I pulled up the hand brake and without bothering to switch off the engine, I got the camera from where it lay on the passengers’ seat and when I zoomed on the birds I realised I had made a find. Two shots through the window and I got out of the car for a closer look without even bothering to move the car to the side of the road. I was lucky I had the correct camera settings as I like to set the camera manually. A few seconds later the birds were off again without giving me time to take another shot. So I went back to the car, parked properly with the hope of they’re coming back but they didn’t return.
These are Kingfishers – I had never seen them before except in pictures.
Joke: Two statisticians went bird hunting. A Kingfisher flew overhead and one statistician fired just to the right of the bird. The other statistician fired just to the left of the bird. They turned to each other in glee, and congratulated each other... "On average, he's dead!", they cried! The kingfisher continued his migration.
Great shot and happy birthday
May 2nd, 2015  
A lucky find, indeed. They are beautiful. Love the colors, especially the yellow.
May 2nd, 2015  
They're beautiful birds. Great composition!
May 2nd, 2015  
Such a treat to see these beauties. Wishing you a wonderful birthday.
May 2nd, 2015  
Great sighting...and a belated Happy birthday ...Given the earths population Statistically you still in your teens.
May 2nd, 2015  
@steeler You're joking, haha.
May 2nd, 2015  
Great lucky shot. Happy birthday!
May 2nd, 2015  
They are beautiful Dione, great capture :)
May 2nd, 2015  
Happy Birthday Dione :)
May 2nd, 2015  
Happy Birthday and what a lovely composition. How luck to see these Kingfishers
May 2nd, 2015  
Happy birthday
May 2nd, 2015  
What a great gift. Happy Birthday
May 2nd, 2015  
great story, super catch!
May 2nd, 2015  
Sweet capture. Love it and I loved your story, too. Fav! Happy Birthday, Dione!
May 2nd, 2015  
Super capture...love the lines, composition
May 2nd, 2015  
Lucky you, a great capture. What lovely bird.
May 2nd, 2015  
Well captured, Dione. They look like bee-eaters :)
May 2nd, 2015  
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140925/environment/Colourful-bee-eaters.537152 Interesting article, links with your comments recently about the practice of shooting small birds in Malta (and other souther European countries) and the unfortunate vote to allow it to conitnue. And http://www.birdinginmalta.com/species_beeeater.htm
May 2nd, 2015  
What a great catch, such beautiful colours too, must have been a real surprise!
May 2nd, 2015  
That is awesome- they are amazing birds. My husband and I saw one once many years ago- it was feeding and it was quite a spectacle!
May 2nd, 2015  
wow, they are soooooo beautiful! My photo for today is a kingfisher too! (But we are really lucky as we now have a few of them living in our garden!!!)

Gorgeous shot, and I hope you had a very happy birthday! :)
May 2nd, 2015  
Beautiful captures of the beautiful birds - they look a little like bee eaters ( http://www.birdinginmalta.com/species_beeeater.htm )
I hope you had a wonderful birthday!
May 2nd, 2015  
Beautifully captured
May 2nd, 2015  
happy birthday dione, lovely kingfishers
May 3rd, 2015  
you just never know what will turn up. a nice birthday surprise.
May 3rd, 2015  
I bet that they sang a Happy Birthday to you.
May 3rd, 2015  
A brilliant capture and story!! And Happy Birthday is in order also. They look almost like they could musical notes to sing that birthday song that Yao is suggesting!!! Great shot and hope your day continued to be special.
May 3rd, 2015  
What a special find! I've heard them but never seen one.
May 3rd, 2015  
They are beautiful. Happy Birthday!!
May 3rd, 2015  
A cute singing duet I assume
May 3rd, 2015  
May 3rd, 2015  
A great birthday gift and a beautiful capture. Fav.
May 3rd, 2015  
@ivan Thanks for the ID Ivan! They looked so different from the Kingfisher I saw- but then I'm in the US and this is Malta!
May 4th, 2015  
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