Image by Andy Ballard from Pixabay
A while ago I was talking to a friend who, before he retired, was involved in a lot of business negotiations with Chinese businesses. On one occasion he was taking a visiting businessman around and showing him the sights and asked him what he found most notable about Perth. He was told it was the sound of the birds.
When I think about it this is very true. There are large numbers of birds in our city, due to the many bushland reserves and parklands. Living as we do in an area surrounded by bushland and with several nearby parks we get to see and hear even more than most.
Yesterday as I went out into the veggie garden to plant the seedlings I'd acquired that morning at the garden centre I could see and hear the evidence. A willy wagtail flew in to inspect what I was doing. These are feisty little birds, not the least bit afraid of taking on anything no matter the size, and he jitty-jittied at me. Since he's a resident here - he has a nest in next door's garden - he was probably suggesting I stir up some insect life for him. After he decided I wasn't very interesting or useful and moved on, a young magpie arrived to sit on the fence until it saw a snack in another neighbour's yard and abandoned me. That was followed by a couple of ravens arguing as they strutted on the roof. While all this was going on I could hear more magpies and lorikeets in the tree in the park behind the fence and doves cooing nearby. This was all in the space of about five minutes.
But this is nothing compared to the afternoon rush on the birdbath outside my office window. The photo at the top of the blog gives some idea of what happens starting at about 4:30 when a mixed flock of around twenty to twenty five small honeyeaters arrives. The majority are New Holland honeyeaters with a scattering of both white cheeked honeyeaters and the smaller brown headed honeyeaters. They flit in, dip, shake then fly out for a further shake on the fence before doing it all again. Occasionally their bath is disrupted by red wattlebirds or their slightly smaller cousins little wattlebirds, sending the honeyeaters to scold from the top of the nearby banana palms. The wattlebirds are less interested in bathing and more in taking a drink and are soon gone. More annoying from the point of view of the honeyeaters is when a raven decides to bathe. They are big birds and water flies everywhere leaving much less for the baths of the waiting honeyeaters. Sometimes a laughing dove will drop in for a drink as well. The whole thing lasts for about ten to fifteen minutes and then they're done and the birdbath is quiet except for the odd visitor wanting to quench his or her thirst until the next afternoon.
