birds in the garden

You must have lots of trees around you Silky , with owls , hawks and currawongs , we have the usual maggies , ravens , mudlarks , mynahs , starlings , doves , blackbirds etc , but we do have a family of blue wrens and another little yellowy wren and the little honeyeaters and wattle birds , i just love the little birds , they are gorgeous !!

Blue wrens Maree! I'm jealous. Yes there are trees around but still suburbia. I just love birds too. Among my favourites are tiny thornbills, eastern spinebills and I love the song of the butcherbird, another one that eyes offs the budgies. Recently I heard the call of pardalotes, wish they would come back and nest here again. They were special. We get different parrots too.

The blue wrens and willy wag tails are gorgeous , had a family of these tiny little birds , they were a greeny yellow , hadn't seen those before , but they came and went , hope they come back , there are so many cats around here though with no bells on their necks , bloody cat owners , my cat has three bells on her collar ...

Maree, those greeny yellow birds - could they be silvereyes? We only get willy wagtails now and then, love watching their antics. There's a cat next door, boy can you tell when it's on the prowl! Blackbirds and others sound their warnings.
Attracting birds to our gardens is something we should all do. They add another dimension and give us joy, it's the least we can do. Plus they help control insect pests.

The wrens love my rose garden. I like to think they are feasting on scale and aphid.
I'd make a list of birds in our garden but then the suburbs may get sad.  

I'd love to know some of the birds in your garden Autumn. Do you have any particular plants for them? Apart from growing scale and aphids just for the wrens Lol.

Okay, I'll start a list. It's a work in progress ...

Permanent / Breeding colonies:
Blue wrens
New Holland Honeyeaters
Striated Pardalotes
Magpies
Firetails (Not 100% sure if they are Red-browed or Beautiful. They move too fast. )
Eastern Spinebills
Top Knot Pigeons
Welcome Swallows (Everyone can feel "welcome" to take some...)
Wille Wagtails
Thornbill (probably the Yellow-rumped)
Kookaburra
Australian Wood Duck

Other Common and/or Seasonal:
Scarlet Robin
Azure Kingfisher
Satin Bowerbird
Eastern Rosellas
King Parrots
Restless Flycatcher
Blue-faced Honeyeater
Scrubtits (not sure which one)
Sulfur-crested cockatoos

I'm not going to count the birds of prey - they tend to be "out there in the paddock" although they do fly over. (Like Wedge-tail eagles, owls etc)

Plants:
A range of different sized bushes. Eg. Correa, Grevillea, Hakea, Buddleia, Wattles, Callistemons, Roses (!), Lavender

Wow, now that's what I call quite a list! You sound like a real bird watcher too, as well as a keen gardener. How lucky are you to enjoy so many different birds. Obviously they appreciate all the plants in your garden. Being on a suburban block our bird visitors are very welcome but limited compared to yours. Interesting that we have topknot pigeons too, they appeared a few years ago and seem happy here. A family of kookaburras visit us each year looking for meat scraps. Eastern rosellas, rainbow lorikeets, galahs and currawongs visit too and occasionally a mopoke. A couple of years ago I even saw a peregrine falcon, it was amazing. Each year a few pairs nest on ledges of tall buildings in the city so I assume that's where it came from.

Silky , all your birds sound fantastic and you too Autumn , came home tonight to see a big Raven having a splash in the birdbath in the front garden , and even though he's not my favourite bird ( my son loves them ) he's still very entertaining !!! Watched the blue wrens flutter in the bird bath on the weekend too , couldn't get any better !!!

Bu
About five years ago on one particular day I counted nineteen different breeds of birds visiting my block in Emu Plains. Dove, Rainbow Lorrikeet, Cockatoo, King Parrot, Blue Wren, Willie Wagtail, Bulbull, Azure Kingfisher, English Blackbird, Magpie, Currawong, Crimson Rosella, Peewit, Double Bar, Redhead, Crow, Kookaburra & Pardalot.

Oooh, azure kingfisher. You lucky thing!
I find it interesting to watch which plants some birds visit. Eastern spinebills happily feed from some exotics, such as salvias and anything tubular like red hot poker. That helps me select plants they might like.
Maree is your bird bath low or one on a pedestal? I have 3 (well really they double as dog bowls) on the ground. I've been thinking of getting a pedestal type. I would love to have blue wrens in my garden.

all I get a corellas and they have a field day wrecking my roses.....blahhhhhh!

Oh dear poor Neptune !!! , that really is not funny though , maybe you can breed roses that smell lovely but taste terrible ....lol ... Silky i have bird baths everywhere , got to supply water for the birds , no seed or anything , just plants and water . In the front garden i have put two pedestal deep ones for the big birds , maggies , ravens etc and a low shallow one on the ground among the bushes and in the back garden i have two baths sitting high atop the water tanks with rocks in them for the smaller birds and a another figurine with pebbles and water in it for the bees , i religiously hose in fresh water every morning . My birds are well looked after lol ...

No doubt about it, your birds are certainly well looked after Maree. I hadn't thought of putting pebbles in the dish, what a good idea. I wish I could find a figurine with a bowl, just something small that would fit into my garden. I'll find one eventually. The dish that is most used here by both birds and dogs is actually a large saucer for a ceramic pot.
It's strange that I mentioned only having seen a peregrine falcon once, because today I saw one again, in hot pursuit of a wattlebird, acrobatics through the trees.

We are lucky to have an assortment of birds as well. Parrots, kookaburras, magpies. I love watching the wrens and the finches flit about in the yard they are so small they hardly qualify as bird.
Near my mothers place I see the odd Turkey wandering around the suburb. I've to beep my horn to get them off the road while three of them were just standing there like they were having a discussion, they slowly wandered off.

Silky , i found the figurine at Bunnings , but of course all these birdie baths need to be cleaned too , or else they get very grungy , the ravens are the messiest birds i think , hope the wattle bird survived too . Happy Roses arn't the little finches the most adorable birds , i love them ....

Our resident pair of rainbow lorikeets have been feasting for the last week or so on loquats that grow on a tree in the backyard.

The flock is back after their Winter absense much to the delight of the AQ.


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Duck Glenyse......   ... I will save you.....

Duck Glenyse......neptune wrote:

And I thought they were lorikeets.

Fantastic photo! They look like they are really enjoying their tucker. What do you feed them?

We feed them apples. We have tried other fruit with limited success. It is interesting there is one pair who live in our backyard the whole year whereas the flock comes and goes. One of the two that stay comes into the family room if you leave the backdoor open and once she attaches herself to me I have to pry her loose to get her to let go.

You two obviously have the knack Ausrose and Glenyse. And what a lovely knack to have! Bird whisperers.... I'm jealous.

silkyfizz wrote:! They look like they are really enjoying their tucker. What do you feed them?

By the look of it, Silky.......HUMANS........  

Haha. Brings to mind Hitchcock's "The Birds"!