It happened last Monday morning. I was sitting at the dining table finishing breakfast and having an unproductive argument with one of my children, when suddenly my eyes fell upon the wonderous and argument-arresting sight of a Paradise Riflebird perched just beyond the kitchen window. Now this, in and of itself, would be proper grounds for a story, but what was yet more astonishing was the 1 metre of dried python skin that dangled from its long, curved bill.
I was momentarily awe-struck and spent perhaps one long second just wordlessly gawping. But then I remembered the big Canon 5D was within reach. Snatching it up as nonchalantly as I could so as not to freak out the shy riflebird, I separated the lens cap and flicked on the power with fingers that seemed to get in each other’s way like crazy shoppers in a pandemic bum-rush for toilet paper. Incredibly the bird had not moved.
“Snatching it up as nonchalantly as I could so as not to freak out the shy riflebird, I separated the lens cap and flicked on the power with fingers that seemed to get in each other’s way like crazy shoppers in a pandemic bum-rush for toilet paper. Incredibly the bird had not moved.”
Hardly daring to hope, I swung the long lens into play, depressed the auto-focus button (no time for fiddling now), steadied my arm and was exactly 1/100th of a second less-than-ready to fire off the shot when the bastard flew.
I’m fairly used to birds doing annoying things like that, so I didn’t hesitate to bolt out the door after it. There was a long moment then where everything else in the world seemed to pause (including my camera arm) and only the rapid wingbeats of that delightful bird of paradise seemed to animate my view as it flew across the forest trailing the snakeskin like a biplane towing a “BUY ONE – GET ONE FREE” banner across a city skyline. And then it as gone. The only image I captured of the moment is the one I can see now when I close my eyes.
I remembered that I’d read somewhere about riflebirds using snakeskin for nest decorations but I’d never seen an actual image or drawing of one…until now. Even so, the world wide web is unbelievably thin on images of riflebird nests. Try it – punch in ‘riflebird nest’ into your browser. Go on, I’ll wait…you see? Apparently, riflebird nests are stupefyingly tricky things to find.
Ok, so I guess that’s my next few weeks sorted then.
Riflebird photo: Mark Gillow. Nest photo: Unknown.