Woman Sees A Very Happy 'Baby Bird' Then Quickly Realizes He's Not What He Seems

"[I] wondered why it wasn’t flying away" 😂

Kym Beechey was out hiking one day in Popran National Park in Australia, taking photos of wildflowers. Beechey is a slow hiker and likes to just wander through nature and take it all in. She’s usually not fast enough to capture any of the wildlife running around, but on this day, she thought luck might be on her side.

“The birds are normally far too quick for me to capture, so when I spied what I thought was a baby tawny frogmouth (an owl-like bird) sitting low on a limb, I was super excited,” Beechey told The Dodo.

Beechey couldn’t believe her luck and quickly grabbed her phone. She got ready to snap a photo of the cute little bird, who seemed to be smiling at her, then zoomed in to get a better look.

fake bird
Kym Beechey

That’s when she realized that, sadly, her new bird friend wasn’t a bird at all.

“It wasn’t until I focused the photo and wondered why it wasn’t flying away that I realized it was, in fact, just a banksia pod,” Beechey said. “Just a cute, adorable banksia pod.”

banksia pod
Shutterstock.com/ausnative

Banksia pods grow off of banksia trees found in Australia, and these pods are definitely very distinct looking. This one, in particular, had a whole personality, which is why Beechey mistook it for a friendly little bird trying to say hello.

Even though the bird turned out to be a fraud, Beechey was still happy to have encountered him. She had a good laugh, and now has a not-actually-a-bird picture to accompany all of her beautiful wildflower pictures.