Visitors to My Garden

Over the years we have so may birds in the garden.  Right from the oft seen Common Myna to once in a while seen herons.

Kookaburra

My all-time favourite kookaburra on my washing line. Normally seen to the electric poles and wires. Largest group was of about 11 which I think was a lot of young birds as I believe they were nesting in one of the large trees.

 

Sulphur Crested Cockatoos

These roam in gangs and decimate trees in their path, screech and make a racket. The crest fan out when they are angry and in warrior mode.

Common Myna

These as the name suggests are aplenty. In one of the house’s I lived they had a permanent next in the partly broken guttering of the roof next door. Every year they had a couple of chicks and the racket started when they want to be fed. Woe betide if any ‘stranger’ came even in my garden. They would dive bomb it. That’s how I found my resident blue tongued lizard that I have got in the alter pictures.

Australian Myna / Noisy Miner

These were the fledglings of the noisy miner pair living in one of the near by trees. The chirping of these chicks is incessant and that’s is what drew my attention to them. Took me a while to find them among the leaves. From the hatching to the flying away took 3 weeks. They moved slowly around the couple of trees to test out their wings…. And last see on the wires before they left.

Rainbow Lorikeets

These are by far my most favourite bird. The colours and the sounds are just joyful I find. These were in the second house that I lived. The one after that had a lot of spider flowers and also bottle-brush trees which meant there was loads of honey and flowers for them to eat (. If the doors were open it felt that the birds were inside the house. It took me a while to stop going around the house to check if there were any lorikeets inside the house.

Blue-tongued Lizard

The first time I saw this creature it was in Melbourne. I was surprised to see such a large lizard and its blue tongue but before I could get a camera out it was off under the house. I never managed to catch it on the camera. But the second house here I was alerted to the sunning lizard just on the side of the house in the grass, by the screaming common myna pair from next door. They were trying to peck the poor lizard. I shooed them away and stood guard to let the lizard warm up. The second picture is of another blue tongue that lived in under the garage of the next house. Sadly, I do not seem to have one in this house… though I have seen one come from next door so maybe it lives there.

Wood Duck

No idea what it was doing here…. Am not that close to a water body. The river and duck pond closest is at Parramatta Park.

Ibis

This is seen everywhere here – parks, roads, city centres, gardens and called dumpster turkey as they are known to dumpster dive. In the first house I never saw any. But in the second one there used to be an occasional one. The next house there was a couple walking down the road. This house I have a large back garden and often they come and aerate my lawn by poking holes for worms. The best was a family of 5. The 2 large ones were of course the parents and the other 3 were smaller in size. Of course when I want to put up the picture those 5 can I find it?

Crested Pigeon

These are cute as they teeter about with that crest bobbing about. This one is well fed but usually they are not very big. They are also always found in pairs from what I have noted. The best memory I have of a pair was a courtship dance on the road. Right in the middle of the road the female was walking in front and the male kept coming and touching her. She shrugged him off and went forward. This went on for a minute of two. Her rebuffs were getting stronger and then she just turned and chased him, pecking at him down the road. I just wished I had been able to get that on camera. It was a funny site. I saw that courtship once again next year.

Heron

Now this is a stranger in the local area. Again, I got alerted when the noisy miners went berserk outside. This made me get up and walk around to all the windows to see if I could find the reasons for all this racket and of course I find the heron wandering about the garden next door. The second time it came over to my garden too.

Lastly, I point you to the last blog which had the rarest bird in the Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoo.

Birds in My Garden

There are a lot of new insects, reptiles and birds that I have come across around my house here. It is always a nice surprise to see the different creatures. Australia is pretty well known for the many dangerous animals it has and I remember a few friends warning me about them before I came here.

First, we lived in Melbourne suburb and it was a very quiet neighbourhood with a lot of greenery, trees and grass around. There were so many birds calls which were unusual to our ears which are now pretty familiar. One day we were walking to the bus stop along a small path that took us to the main road and the bus stop. Around that time, I was still not stable in health and so had to walk slowly and hence had the time to look around as I walked. Looking at the amazing variety of different flowers and beautiful gardens. We used to walk that road often to get to bus stop as any outing whether just for buying groceries or to just an outing on the bus to see places, bus was the only way to go.

Suddenly my husband said oh look there is something in the tress high up in front. Large black mass…. Could that be a monkey? He speculated. But surely there are no wild monkeys in the suburbs in this country? We walked towards the tree as it was right by the end of the lane where we turned out on to the road. The size of this creature seemed fairly big .. yes it was big enough to be a monkey. Was that its back we were seeing. But then we were almost up t the tree and this creature squawked. Oh gosh! This was a black cockatoo and it is enormous. Then as our eyes adjusted to the angle and the light, we saw there were 2 enormous Glossy Black Cockatoos sitting on the branch and making soft sounds.

We stood there on the road for a good 5 minutes watching the beautiful birds.

Once again, we had the pleasure of seeing these elusive and endangered birds when we were at Murramurang National Park. We were sitting in the resort and having a cuppa. Suddenly there was a commotion and rustling in the trees….. loud strange bird calls. Everyone got up to look up through the trees to see what bird it was… and out flew a flock of 4 large Glossy Black Cockatoos. Simply beautiful and made me smile happily for the rest of the evening.

More recently, I was walking in my house as per usual and heard some screeching from outside. I live on top of a hill almost at a corner and so when there are bird calls it hard to figure out the direction immediately. So I looked out the front, opened the front door and looked out on that side. After a few minutes I gave up and continued walked. This time the screeching was coming from the back garden. I stopped at the kitchen window to see if there was anything visible. Suddenly I noticed the bark of my large eucalyptus tree being stripped and dropped down on the grass. There was something dark in the tree, could just about see a black bit moving. I went out and stood under the tree, oh my it was a glossy black cockatoo all right.  Just as I stood watching thinking its too late to grab my camera it flew off… a beautiful large yellow tailed black cockatoo.

Amusing Observation of Life

I have always been keen to see what is happening in my surroundings which also makes me an avid people watcher. It is always interesting to see what people are doing and making inferences from just the visuals. A hobby I think I have developed during my childhood were a fair few hour were spend sitting on a high stool in the grill veranda over looking the road. As kids we are naturally curious and so it was fun to just see people going about their business, checking out clothes, and anything unusual.

Generally, in the morning I walk in the house or in the garden for my daily exercise. Yesterday it was grey and drizzling on and off. I noticed the people across the road taking their car out of the drive. Now where can they be going in this lockdown? Ah he gets out and open the boot. Out comes some gardening tool from what I can see. Their gate into the back garden is open and I can see the grass is knee high. I thought oh is he planning to cut grass in this wettish weather? When I return back to the front of the house (for I walk back and forth) I see him with a lawnmower outside the boot and a petrol can. So maybe he is going to fill her up and cut grass. But surely cutting wet grass is not the done thing as it will wreck the mower. Believe me it gets clogged and heats up and conks out as I have found to my irritation.

Back the next round of walk and oh what is this he is lifting it to try and put it in the boot. Now this is interesting so I stop walking and watch. He tries to put it mover facing into the car and the handle sticks out. The handle of the mower is set pretty high so difficult to fit in. Next, he calls his wife to give him a hand. Then they lift the mower up together and try to put the mower in handle first but of course this again is hindered by the high handle. So out comes the mower and set down. The back seats are dropped down to make more room in the back. In goes the mower again but now they find that while the whole mower gets right in but the handle is too high for the mower end to be placed flat on the floor of the boot. The petrol can and the top of boot cover is in the road outside. The man holds up the mower and starts hunting for something to fit under it to hold it at that angle. I am thinking why is he not undoing the handle as that is detachable or even adjusted to a lower height.

I am all but yelling in my head what are you doing? Let the handle down! Or use that petrol can …. Put it under the mower and it will hold the mower in place. 

The wife has disappeared into the house. Is she looking for something to use as a wedge? Oh no look! She comes out and gets into the back seat of the car and holds on to the mower handle to keep the mower in place and in the car. The man puts the petrol can and the back cover of the boot into the boot. Gets into the driver’s side and drives off. I resume my walk shaking my head at the logic of it all.