PORT VILA, VANUATU — A dove landed in the grass below, and I snapped my binoculars to my eyes. The bird’s wings were deep, iridescent green, and its head and breast were a rich warm brown. I think you are an Emerald Dove.

But the cooing in the tree above my head did not stop. They were fruit-doves, I knew it. Show yourselves! Hadn’t I been sitting here long enough? I kept seeing them move but could never quite get on them.

Glossy Swiftlets sailed back and forth over the lawn, and I saw the other swift species much higher in the sky. I’d seen both of them briefly the morning before and noted then too that the white-rumped Glossies stayed very low while the plain-colored birds foraged well above the treetops in the open sky.

Silver-eyes, trillers, and those little honeyeaters foraged in the vegetation. The trillers, as they had yesterday, stayed high in the pines and were almost impossible to see well. I remember reading that there are two species here, and I don’t know how to separate them. Especially if I can’t see them.

The Silver-eyes, like the ones I saw in Australia, have gray backs and gray bellies. The honeyeaters are dark grayish with yellow-green in their wings. They have longish bills, and they seem to have pale gape lines, though I can’t tell whether that’s skin or feathering. Many calls are harsh, but they have slightly more musical ones sometimes.

Common Mynas are, well, very common. Abundant, one might say. They seem to be in every tree and fly by regularly. I wonder if they’re a problem, or if they co-exist reasonably well with the native species.

I almost felt the movement rather than actually seeing it. Up came my binoculars, and I peered through a tiny hole in foliage. Brightly colored underside. Still, still…. And there were the fruit-doves. It looked like a male showing off for his lady — he hopped back and forth, back and forth, back and forth between two small branches.

They were the most beautiful fruit-doves I’d seen so far. Breasts were mint green and seemed to have pointed or dark-tipped feathers. Crowns were rose pink, and underparts ranged from dark rose to yellow-orange to red. I could see them if I held myself in just the right spot, and all my impatience melted away. I was privileged to an intimate glimpse into the lives of these discreet and lovely creatures. Why should they be exhibitionists? They should not.

Eventually, I finished climbing the stairs to sit on the porch with Janet, the Yorks, and the Heins as we waited for our ride. We exchanged good mornings, and I looked out across the harbor below, lit brightly by the morning sun. Then two little birds flew into a shrub — two bright yellow birds.

I pulled out my binoculars. They were white-eyes, yellow-brown above and entirely yellow below. More mental notes. More questions for a field guide I do not have. But my, aren’t they beautiful little birds.

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