Named for their soft ‘swee swee’ call, the small and colourful Swee waxbills are guaranteed to distract me from my work on their occasional visits to our garden.
If I hear their soft call, I abandon my desk and venture outside with my camera in hand. Currently a small group of five birds come to feed on grass seeds in our winter garden. I am always delighted to see them. The colourful Swee waxbills provide a huge incentive for us to leave patches of grasses to go to seed in the garden so as to attract them and other seed-eating birds. Watching them foraging naturally is indeed a diverting and delightful distraction. Irresistible to me, that is for sure.
Above is a picture of a male Swee waxbill, and below is a picture of a female, when they visited our garden in KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa last week.
This post is in response to the Weekly Photo Challenge inviting us to share diversions, distractions and delightful detours. The Swee waxbill is my current “Ooh, shiny!”. To see what distracts and delights other bloggers, click here
Posted by Carol
August 22, 2017 at 2:24 am
So cute!
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August 22, 2017 at 7:36 am
Cute is the word 🙂
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August 21, 2017 at 6:32 pm
Wow I would like to have a lot of Swee waxbills around me. They make me fee ver thin! Beautiful photos and bird even it it is a bit voluminous for its size 🙂
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August 22, 2017 at 7:35 am
🙂 They are flaunting their very fine feathers!
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August 22, 2017 at 7:49 am
Good then I will flaunt mine as well 🙂
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August 22, 2017 at 8:00 am
Swee-t 🙂
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August 22, 2017 at 8:21 am
I do believe you are better at puns than I am Swee-t 🙂 🙂 – not an acknowledgement easily made. I have since realized you are a fellow South African and find your not melting Chinese chess pieces amazing. Well not the fact that they don’t melt despite you living in KZN, but there mere existence.
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August 22, 2017 at 9:31 am
Thanks for the accolade – however, I don’t think I will live up to that standard 🙂 I inherited a weakness for puns from my father, but mine by comparison are puny. It is always good to meet a fellow South Africa in blogland. Thanks for your feedback on the chess pieces. I have replied further in the post.
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August 18, 2017 at 4:11 pm
Oh my, what a lovely little bird!
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August 19, 2017 at 6:21 am
Yes it is, and very special to see.
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August 18, 2017 at 11:09 am
Beautiful chubby bird and beautiful pictures.
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August 18, 2017 at 12:28 pm
Thanks Leigh. They really do look chubby when perching, but they can be surprisingly athletic and manage to look slender when stretching out for grass seeds that are almost of reach.
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August 18, 2017 at 7:24 am
Utterly irresistible.
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August 18, 2017 at 7:40 am
I think so too!
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August 18, 2017 at 4:33 am
A rainbow of colorful feathers. 😊
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August 18, 2017 at 5:30 am
That is a lovely way to describe them ☺
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August 17, 2017 at 8:47 pm
Thanks Eliza. Glad you got hear the call! Only a pleasure to share such a favourite.
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August 17, 2017 at 8:13 pm
A beautiful bird and their call is sweet (I googled it). Thanks for sharing this lovely species!
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