More Birds and Bits

This is the view of the garden outside my back door. It's not the greatest photo I'll admit but all these flowers self seed bountifully so they come up every Spring and give me great joy. While you can only see red poppies, calendulas and nasturtiums also nestled in among them are the tiny flowers of heartsease and alyssum.

In other news the New Holland honeyeater nesting in a fern in a hanging basket at the side of the house is not very good at not revealing itself. We’re avoiding using that path as much as possible but the worm farm is there so occasionally I have take them food. Every time I do - and bear in mind I’m walking as far away as I can on the far side of the path and carefully not looking in the direction of the nest - the honeyeater bursts off the nest in a flapping panic, then lands on a nearby twig where it stays staring at me and looking very uneasy.

The honeyeaters are not the only ones nesting among the ferns. There’s also a laughing dove in another hanging basket. She is much more sensible and although clearly nervous she stays firmly put, hunkering down and trying to pretend she’s not there. Move along, human. There’s nothing to see here, she seems to be thinking.

The Australian ravens are also extremely busy. They have one very loud and demanding youngster and keeping its gaping beak occupied is persuading them to be quite bold. We have a large population of lizards and frogs living in our yard and so we don’t encourage ravens or kookaburras for that matter. I’ve been finding bones - some quite large - all over the garden. Not satisfied with turning the bird bath into a messy sludge by dipping stolen bread in it, the ravens raid rubbish bins and dump the bones here when they're finished with them. Since the baby is now as big as its parents I suspect it won’t be long before it is expected to find its own food and things will quieten down. I hope so because it's very raucous and its cries keep sending the neighbourhood dogs into a barking frenzy.

Birds in My Garden

One of the joys of living where I do is the number of different species of birds that appear in our garden - and in Spring that number increases as the migratory birds come back. We're suburban but surrounded by bush and wetlands.This includes two golf courses - both of which have remnant bush (one has a resident mob of kangaroos), three nature reserves, one surrounding a large lake, another a wetland awhile the last includes wetlands as well as public space and that's without mentioning the numerous small parks nearby.

All these areas are home to many birds and they overflow into our gardens to feed. In the past week we've been visited by some of the magpie clan as well as Australian ravens both of which live in the park adjoining our back fence. As well we've had visiting pink and grey galahs that have dropped in to feast on the seeding weeds that I have yet to get to. I confess that part of my slowness is to encourage the birds. If I weeded every part of the garden as soon as the weeds appeared we'd miss out on these entertaining visitors.

Then there's the willy wagtail (well-named djitti-djitti in the local Nonngar language as he jitters noisily as he feasts on the flying ants that are starting to emerge). He's a feisty little fellow - and very little fazes him. He'll take on anything that he perceives as a potential threat, puffing out his little chest and chittering furiously until they take the hint or if he deems it necessary he swoops. Doesn't matter how much bigger the birds, dogs, people he'll take them on.

The New Holland honeyeaters are around in increasing numbers, too. We have at least one pair nesting in the ferns around the side of the house. It means the ferns and pineapples will have to go unwatered for a few weeks but they should survive. We did see some odd honeyeater behaviour that we've never seen before the other day. We heard lots of bird tweeting and yelling outside the back door and went out to find about a dozen honeyeaters had another one down on the paving and they were attacking furiously. They were so focussed that we were right up to them before they even noticed us.  No idea what that was about but all of them flew off so I guess not much damage had been done.

As well as these locals there are the others that move in to breed during the end of winter and beginning of spring. I saw my first grey butcher bird a couple of days ago. They have a pretty song that you can hear here.

There are a number of LBBs, too. Those are the little brown birds I haven't been able to get close enough to identify. I suspect they're mostly other honeyeaters or gerygones because I've seen them here before but I'll wait until I can actually identify them before I name them.

Then there are the feral birds. These include the ubiquitous doves that are everywhere - those are thanks to founder of the Perth Zoo who was appointed by the Western Australian Acclimatization committee to set up the zoo and to release European species into the wild. Why they thought that was a good idea I do not know but as a result we have populations of the laughing dove and the spotted dove. They're pretty things that don't cause much of a problem unlike the aggressive rainbow lorikeets which may be lovely to look at but take over native birds' nesting hollows and toss out the eggs and chicks, not to mention the damage they do to fruit crops. They're birds I'd be happy to see disappear.

So that was last week in my garden. I wonder what birds next week will bring.

The Joys of Gardening in Spring

- and yes, I am being sarcastic since my spring time mantra is lovely to look at but horrible to breathe which does make gardening somewhat problematic. Off on a slight tangent: because European seasons don't actually work out all that well here I prefer to use the local Noongar seasons. This makes August and September Djilba, instead of the end of winter and beginning of spring. The Noongar seasons were worked out by the local weather patterns which makes a lot more sense for here than those entirely different ones of the Northern Hemisphere. So my heading should read The Joys of Gardening in Djilba but I figured that would only confuse everyone.

Whatever it's called this time of year has its challenges. It's still cool and often rainy but starting to warm enough that the weeds are springing up everywhere. This explosion of grasses into flower means the air is full of pollen which makes breathing less than enjoyable for those of us who suffer from asthma and/or hay fever. Western Australia is famous for the spectacular displays of wildflowers at this time of the year and they are truly glorious. Supposedly they don't add much to the cocktail of allergens so I suppose I should be grateful for that.

Along with the wild flowers, of course, there's winter grass - untidy and prone to appearing in places I'd rather it didn't but otherwise not a real problem to control - and wild oats turn up everywhere. If they would only confine themselves to out of the way places I wouldn't mind so much. The wild oat in particular is quite graceful and delicate as they move in the wind. Pity they have pointy seeds that stick into just about everything including flesh. Then there are the clovers which are already covered in prickles and such a pest to have to pull out - and I can't forget the thistles which range from the familiar milk thistle to a nasty one that grows up to a metre high and is a nightmare to pull out because it is literally covered in sharp prickles.  On top of all this there's another vicious grass that keeps finding its way under the fence from next door and comes with prickles that hook onto anything - clothing, shoes and skin. Its little barbs dig in making them hard to remove as they break off leaving the tips behind unless you're very lucky. Then there's the double gee (also called the three cornered jack or spiny emex) which has three very tough pointed spikes that dig into pretty much everything as well. It was apparently imported back in the day by the earliest European settlers as a green vegetable, though why anyone would even think of bothering to eat its less than appealing looking leaves I do not know. Of course it escaped and is now rampant across the agricultural areas causing significant problems.

I haven't even started on the insect pests which appear regularly at this time of the year. First to invade were the cabbage white butterflies and they lay their eggs on all and any of the cabbage family - cabbages, kale, broccoli, nasturtiums. They don't care. I might be the kind of gardener who doesn't like to kill things - I don't use chemical insecticides - but picking them off doesn't work so I do spray with Dipel, which is a spray containing a naturally occurring bacterium (Bacillus thuringiensis) which kills caterpillars that ingest it.

The other serious insect pests at this time of the year are the aphids which seem to be under the impression that the onion tribe is being planted purely for their sustenance. Uh, no. These reproduce at an incredible rate and the theory espoused by the gardening experts on all the gardening shows I've seen recently - just hose them off and wait until the natural predators build up - is in my opinion simply rubbish. I've tried that and by the time the natural predators arrive there are precious few of the plants I want to save left. In the past week I've tried the squash 'em method, the sharp spray with a hose method and then I tried spraying with a soap based spray. While each method has helped a little by the next day they are already back in numbers. I don't think I can wait for nature to take its course any longer - I've already lost half my onions, the garlic chives are disappearing almost before my eyes and today I noticed the wee beasties had started on the onion chives.  I'm reluctantly giving in and heading to the garden centre for a pyrethrum based spray because it has a very short residual period so is less of a worry than chemical based sprays. Wish me luck.

Bush Foods

This spectacular flower is the red and green kangaroo paw Anigozanthos manglesii. It's the floral emblem of Western Australia and this one is growing in a pot in my garden.









When the first European settlers arrived here in Western Australia they brought with them a lot of ideas on how to 'improve' the country. With the pretence that Australia was terra nullius or a land that belonged to no-one, they tried to wrestle the land and indigenous people into a European mould. Very belatedly there has been recognition that the indigenous population possessed a rich culture. They had been using firestick farming for thousands of generations and they still have much knowledge to share. We can't go back and alter what happened but we can acknowledge and learn from them and one way would be to acknowledge that this is not Europe. I know - who'd have guessed that a continent on the opposite of the globe might not work in the same way as that the colonists came from. It was a belief fuelled by extraordinary arrogance and ignorance I suspect.

Well the world turns and we learn. Which is why these days like many others I'm very interested in growing indigenous food plants along with those that have been imported from the Mediterranean climes which are so similar to our own. There was a time when this was difficult. With the exception of macadamia nuts very little notice was taken of local food crops. In fact in many places they were deliberately pulled out to provide growing space for exotics and while this still happens to a degree people are becoming more aware of bush tucker and how to use it.

And it's not only gardeners who are interested. Flavourings like lemon myrtle, finger limes and pepperberry as well as foods like quandongs, riberries, warrigal greens and wattleseed are only a few of the native plants making their way to restaurants and specialist suppliers. I've discovered a couple of nurseries that specialise in edible bush plants nearby and I've plans to go on a wander and stock up on some of the more unusual ones but in truth I don't have to go all that far. When I was at my local Bunnings store recently I discovered a section devoted to some of the more commonly used species. I didn't buy anything that day - I needed to go home and prepare some beds for planting - but I've convinced Pisces that we need to go back. Who knows what treasures I may find there. I'll let you know when I've had a look around.

If you're wondering why the kangaroo paw image, it's because I read recently that it was a food staple  for the local Noongar people before colonisation. I haven't been able to find out how they used it  yet but I will be continuing my journey of discovering how to use bush tucker and when I find out you'll be the first to know.