72. Bronze Mannikin Another small, rather ordinary looking brown, black and white, ground-foraging, seed-eating finch-like bird. But look closely at that shoulder and the lozenge-shaped patch of iridescent green. Look at the different colours of the mandibles of the bill: the upper slatey grey, the lower bluish white. These features, along with a slightly less heavy beak, distinguish it from the similar looking Red-Backed Mannikin which is also on our list (see overpage). One of the things that I love about birds and watching birds is the way it requires one to look really closely and intently at what is in front of one, at the world in which we live. Most of the time, we do not really see what we are looking at. But watching birds – seeing not only how they look but how they behave, how they make their living on this planet – makes me engage much more deeply in that world. I suspect there are not many days in my life when I have not seen mannikins, for they are plentiful where I live. Now after this, I am wondering whether what I looked at, but may not have really seen, were not in fact Bronzes but were actually read-backs Birds of AFRICAMA House 149