Afternoon Parade

 I'm sure we've all heard of the Dawn chorus when the sun is still below the horizon but the birds are up and asserting their territorial rights in song. If like me your wake up time is linked very much to sunrise this is a magical time of the day as the songbirds sing their hearts out. It's a joy to listen to but I confess in midsummer when dawn arrives at around 4:30 AM I tend to wake up, listen for a bit and then pull the sheet over my head and doze again for an hour or so. I'm usually up by around six wakened by the sun even with my curtains drawn.

In winter, of course, all this happens much later and I'm usually still tucked in until shortly before the light starts to appear at a little after seven. This means not much time to spend listening to the birds since the day's routine  has to get moving. This is when the alternative of the afternoon parade of birds visiting my birdbath becomes a delight as they vocalise as well as drinking and bathing. They are all so different and come in relays of different species.

The djitti djittis or willy wagtails (one has just rather bravely taken its afternoon bath despite the chilly weather), ravens and laughing doves come whenever they choose unlike the other smaller birds. The ravens are solitary and can appear at any time of day, often bringing some dry bread stolen from a rubbish bin to soak. The only ones prepared to try to dislodge them are the willy wagtails. These small birds smartly dressed in back and white - they remind me of a portly man in a dinner jacket - are convinced that they don't have to retreat for anything or anyone and will take on even bird as much bigger than itself as as a raven. After a few beak clips above the head even the bravest raven will decide it's not worth the discomfort. The doves don't so much bathe as just stand in the water to cool off in the summer and in the winter they've only interested in snatching a drink. They, too, are quickly sent on their way when an angry willy wagtail, less than a quarter the size, lands on the rim of the birdbath and bounces up and down chattering loudly.

The others come in quite distinct groups. 

The first to come are the wattle birds and they arrive from around 4:00 to 4:30. These are mostly red wattle birds but we sometimes get a little wattle bird.They come as singles or pairs and drink then bathe spraying water everywhere and accompanying it all with harsh, raucous cries. In summer they can get quite wet and then they move out to sit on the fence to fluff out their feathers and dry off a little. 

Next it's the smaller honeyeaters about half an hour later. We have several resident species - brown honeyeaters, singing honeyeaters and New Holland honeyeaters. These come in ones and twos, sometimes threes, and of them by far the most striking are the New Holland honeyeaters with their handsome vertically streaked black and white coats. The brown honeyeaters are, well, brown as are the singing honeyeaters but these sport a black patch over their eyes making my children call them bandit birds. They are unfortunately very fond of grapes so we lose a large part of our crop to them every year. These all drink then bathe quickly before flying up to the nearby banana palms to fluff and dry off.

Once the honeyeaters are done successive little chirping flocks of much smaller brown birds flutter in like so many tiny falling leaves. I've managed only to identify weebills which come from time to time. The others remain a mystery, what an ornithologist friend of mine calls LBBs - little brown birds. They don't stop only snatching a drink on the wing or skimming their bellies across the water's surface. 

And then we're done.  I have to confess this parade is very distracting because the bird bath is in clear view from my study window and when my attention wanders - and it does more than it should I'm afraid - I spend time when I should be doing other things watching the parade and listening to the birdsong chorus from high in the trees as daylight fades.