Birds Bathing

In my continuing attempt to avoid the mess the world's in - war, climate change, floods I could go on but I won't - I'm soothing my mind with birds.

 I'm lucky enough to live in a suburb of big blocks which is surrounded on three sides with ideal bird habitat. Closest to us is a golf course which was established as a country club back in the days when this whole area was bushland. The golf club has made a serious effort to keep wildlife friendly and the small lakes and bushland within its boundaries houses a resident mob of kangaroos. We don't often see a sign telling you to watch out for kangaroos in the middle of suburbia but there's one on the road behind where we live. Add to this the bushland of a large pubic recreation area, a bushland reserve and another golf course all only a short distance away as well as a park directly behind our block and we have a wealth of natural habitat.

This means wild life especially birds spills over onto the blocks in the surrounding streets. I found a Purple Swamphen grabbing a quick drink when I went out to change the sprinklers early one morning and we've had several ducks nest in and around our place. They were  probably Pacific Black ducks - though it's not easy to tell since they interbreed with other species - and they have a perilous trip to take their ducklings back to the safety of the golf course. As well in the late winter to early the shelducks arrive to graze on the new grass shoots.

To attract birds to our garden we have a birdbath much appreciated by the birds in the summer in particular. It's strategically placed so we can see it and while there are often visits over the day it's late afternoon when it really gets busy. I've been trying to identify all the visitors but that's proved impossible. I unfortunately don't have a great camera for capturing fast moving targets - and some of them are very fast - so many of the little brown birds will remain a mystery. Instead I'll give you a list of those I've managed to identify in the past few days.

The willy wagtail is around the garden most of the time. These are handsome little fantailed birds -  around 20 centimetres -with black backs and wings contrasted by their white chests. We have a nesting pair here and they are incredibly tame, to the point that we have to keep. a watchful eye when we're on the grass hanging out the washing so we don't tread on one. They aggressively claim the birdbath at times and djitty djitty furiously if any other bird however big has the temerity to want a drink or bath. They'll happily take on a raven which at around 50 centimetres is considerably bigger than the willy wagtail and more often than not the bigger bird leaves the defeated. When they bathe they really bathe and come out to sit on the side of the bath wet feathers fluffed out before they shake themselves and fly off.

Then there are the honeyeaters, the largest of which is a pair of red wattlebirds. These are some of the biggest visitors at around 33 centimetres and can feel entitled to have the bath to themselves as well while they have a thorough bath. The smaller honeyeaters usually wait until the wattlebirds are shaking themselves on the side of the bath before they begin to come in. They fly in and out so fast and often in small flocks making it very hard to recognise them. So far I've managed to identify these: New Holland honeyeaters - these are resident here and we often see them out in the garden. Then there are the singing honeyeaters - also common here and extremely fond of our grapes. We're being visited by brown honeyeaters, too, as well as occasional white cheeked honeyeaters. 

There are some other tiny birds which had been defeating all my efforts at getting a close look at them until yesterday. They come in a small flock, flying in at great speed to flit around in the water then leave just as fast which means getting a good look is all but impossible. They remind me of a flurry of little brown leaves caught up by the wind. Yesterday, though, one of them stopped for more than a second and I think I can confidently say they are weebills. This is the smallest of the Australian birds and I'm pretty chuffed at having finally being able to identify them. We've also just had another unusual visitor, a striated pardalote. I knew these were occasional visitors to the country club golf course but I have never seen one here before.

Along with these we get Australian magpies and magpie larks from time to time as well as the odd pink and grey galahs - these all live in the park we back onto - and, of course, the ubiquitous (and feral) laughing doves and spotted doves. These last two were released over a hundred years ago around the then newly established zoo and have since spread all over Perth to the point that many folk think they are natives.