Morning coffee with the birds

f/5.6 1/1000 ISO 160 300mm

Today the sun was so warm and beautiful that when it was time to stop for our 10.30 cup of coffee the chairs were set up in the swimming pool yard in the open fronted shade house. It has been a while since we behaved like rich people on holidays and it was great fun!
Earlier I had noticed that a greenish honey eater was flitting back and forth among the bromiliad blooms and it was not really being very timid to me standing only a few feet away. When we carried the coffees downstairs I also took my camera and tripod - just in case.

f/7.1 1/640 sec ISO 160 300mm

I didn't have long to wait. The honey eater came to the plants quite close to where we were sitting - but when I stood up to go to the camera it flew away.
Not to be out done I lowered the tripod so that I could use the camera without having to move - except to put the coffee down and switch the camera on!
I must have taken twelve shots of the bird (its a good thing I shoot digital - this hobby would be very expensive if I had to pay for film and developing!). Some were acceptable and some were to be discarded because the flowers were in the way or the bird turned his head away at the wrong moment.
I rather like the shot of the bird hovering under the flowers, it only did this for a couple of seconds before alighting on another plant. Our honey eaters are not like the humming birds, they prefer to hang upside-down from branches rather than hover and feed. They will hover briefly but they are far too heavy to keep it up for long.
AJ