This one's for the birds

We went to a bird sanctuary to take some photos. It was one of those with the wooden walkways that took you ever higher into the treetops so you could get closer to the birds – that would obviously go as high as they could. There were some large tropical parrots, etc, that were not skittish and would sit on branches about two meters away from you, and while these made lovely pictures, they were not the only birds there and we wanted pictures with more variety. So the hunt was on for elusive birds.

Quickly we learned that using other people was easier. If you saw someone really putting effort into taking a picture, you went there to see what they saw and hopefully get a nice picture too. 

This worked well enough. We got quite a few pictures, but no real close-ups. When we reached the end of the path, there was a restaurant of sorts. Most people just headed for the gate in a hurry, meaning the place wasn’t busy and also not empty. We sat down and ordered milk shakes and fruit juice. We finished our fruit juice and sat chatting for a while. By the time the milkshakes arrived, we were calm and relaxed and accepted that we got mostly hidden bird photos.

Sitting back discussing all the beautiful birds, a cockatiel landed on the table. As a joke, I offered him some milkshake via the straw. He actually came forward and took it. He flew off and returned with a friend also wanting milkshake. I obliged, and somehow made new friends. They came to sit on my shoulders and I fed them milkshake drops. Other birds, seeing this, wanted in on the action, and soon I was covered in birds. Some German tourists stopped and wanted to know if I worked there. The spectacle not only got my girlfriend some nice photos, but lots of tourists too. We filled the rest of our SD cards with dozens of nice close-up shots. Moral of the story; if you have a problem, keep at it, sure, but some time or other, take a break, have a coffee, think about
something else, the solution may come to you.

Source: Some or all of the content was generated using an AI language model