Grey Fantail visits our garden
The Grey Fantail is one of Australia’s better known birds. Along with its cousin, the Willie Wagtail, it is a member of the flycatcher family of Australian birds. Like the Willie Wagtail, the Grey Fantail is an endearing bird, often coming quite close to people while they visit parks and gardens, or even in house gardens in suburban areas.
Grey Fantail
I love having this cheeky and inquisitive bird nearby, and its beautiful, lilting flute-like ascending call is one of my favourite bird calls in the Australian environment. Unfortunately we only have occasional visits from this species in our garden. One visited us a few days ago, perching on a dead branch near where I was working. It had a close up look at me before flying off again. I didn’t have my camera with me; one day I’ll get a better shot than the one above.
Grey Fantails are found throughout Australia except for the very dry parts. Its preferred habitats include open forests and scrublands, orchards, golf courses, parks and gardens and along watercourses. It breeds in the latter half of the year. Its nest is a delicate, cup shaped bowl with a tail like a wineglass without a base. The nest usually consists of fine grass, spider web, bark strips or plant fibre. They usually lay 2 to 3 eggs, sometimes four.
Willie Wagtail
Still more rain
Two days ago I wrote about the rain we were receiving. We have been in drought conditions here in South Australia for some time with little good rainfall for over eighteen months. Coupled with a long, hot summer the situation was getting serious. We were on quite severe water restrictions with the promise of further bans in coming weeks.
Since Thursday, however, it has hardly stopped raining. In the last 60 hours we have had about 85mm. Now this may seem not a great deal of rain compared to some parts of the world, but considering our annual average is only 344mm, this rain represents almost 25% of our annual precipitation. It was very steady rain meaning there was very little runoff; it was the long steady rainfall we had been praying for. More is forecast for the coming week.
More rain is needed:
We still have a long way to go before water restrictions can be lifted, however. It will take much more rain over a long period of time to replenish our depleted reservoirs. Even more rain is desperately needed in the Murray-Darling catchment basin in the eastern parts of Australia. This river system waters vast areas of food producing farmlands and orchards. Good rain over several years will be needed to bring the river system back into balance again.
Birds and the rain:
The rain was quite heavy for most of today. I didn’t hear any birds calling until the rain stopped at about 5pm. In fact, I didn’t even see any birds for most of the day. As soon as the rain stopped, the birds started calling again. The Little Ravens were the first to call, followed closely by the Magpie Larks, New Holland Honeyeaters and the Pardalotes. No birds came to visit the bird baths today. I wonder why?
Listen to the Rain
It’s raining!
What a lovely sound it makes on the roof.
Drought
Normally I wouldn’t make much of the rain on this blog, but the last year has been so dry that a good rain is quite newsworthy. This part of Australia has experienced a serious drought over the last year or so. We are currently on severe water restrictions with the threat of much worse to come. Some other parts of Australia are far worse off than we are, but we seem to be heading in the same direction. Many reservoirs are down to below 10% of capacity with only a few weeks of supply left.
A Day of Rain
At about eight o’clock this morning the rain started steadily. It has been raining now for close to nine hours and shows no sign of letting up. I’ve just checked the radar of the Adelaide Bureau of Meteorology and the rain should continue for quite a while yet, perhaps well into the night. And more is forecast for the coming week.
Birds in the Rain
Most birds just love the rain. I haven’t seen any come to the birdbath all day (not that I’ve been watching it all that much – the rain is far more interesting). The Honeyeaters and Willie Wagtails enjoy having a good shower in rain water. This morning I saw several Australian Magpies just sitting calmly on a post enjoying the water dribbling down their backs. On the downside, I did see one very wet, bedraggled, sad looking Galah sitting on a power line this morning.
Australian Magpie
This photo of a lovely magpie was not taken today. It was taken some time ago when we were on a picnic at a nearby reserve.
Peaceful Doves in our garden
Several days ago I was writing at my desk in the office when I heard the unmistakable call of a Peaceful Dove in our garden. It sounded like it was in the tree right outside the office. The camera often resides within reach and so I was on my way outside in seconds. Sure enough, a single Peaceful Dove was in the tree but my approach was a little too noisy or rapid.
Peaceful Doves can be a little flighty at times. This one quickly flew a short distance away to another tree further from the house. This time I was a little more cautious. I was able to get four or five shots before it decided to head off towards a patch of scrub next door. Unfortunately, the light was all wrong and the resulting photos are not worth keeping. Instead, I have posted a photo of a Peaceful Dove seen last year in the walk-through aviary at the Cleland Wildlife Park.
Peaceful Dove, Cleland Wildlife Park
Peaceful Doves cannot be classed as resident in our garden, but they are reasonably frequent visitors. We love hearing their soft “doodle-doo” call as we work outside. Peaceful doves are widespread throughout the eastern and northern halves of Australia.
As a little aside, I find it quite remarkable how often their call is featured in the background of Australian films or television shows.
Diamond Firetail Finch
Diamond Firetail Finch
Yesterday we were having lunch in the sunroom overlooking the bird baths in the garden. A single Diamond Firetail Finch delighted us by coming to drink several times from the bird bath. It gave me enough time to gather the camera from the office and take a few quickly snapped photos. These are the best two shots.
Diamond Firetail Finch
I was a delight to see this beautiful bird again after an absence of several months. It is widespread in our district but nowhere common. It is an infrequent visitor to our garden. I can’t add this species to the list of birds to have visited the bird bath as it has done so on several occasions before.
Related articles:
- Bird baths – an archive of articles about birds that have visited our garden bird baths.
- Visitors to our bird baths – lots of photos and a list of all the species to have visited our bird baths.