Birds and Plants
My wife and I have just finished a very busy weekend of hard work. On both Saturday and Sunday we spent all day at the Australian Plants Society autumn plant sale at the Wayville Showgrounds in Adelaide. We also plan to attend the spring plant sale and flower show on the 7th and 8th of October. We took several loads of plants to sell at this event, totalling over 1500 individual plants this time. These are grown in our Mallee Native Plants nursery.
Help Desk
My wife spends most of her time keeping an eye on her plants on the tables and assisting customers with their purchases. She also networks with other growers attending the sale. These growers are an excellent source if information and most are very willing to share their knowledge. At the same time my job is to assist at the Help Desk, usually situated near the entrance. Many customers come to the help desk asking for help with plant selection. I have my laptop there in front of me, my laser printer alongside and with a monitor facing the customers. We step them through a selection process, keying in their preferences and then print out a list of plants available at the sale which potentially meet their requirements.
APS Query
One of the others at the Help Desk is Howard Harvey who has written the program called APS Query which we use during the sales. This program helps us narrow the search for plants. We key in the unique planting situation of the customer, such as whether they are planting in full sun, dappled shade or full shade, whether the plants need to be drought, frost, wind or lime tolerant, the Ph of the soil, the desired size (height, width) of the plants and many other fields to choose from. This narrows the search from some 1500 species available at the sale down to a manageable 20-50 species, which we then print out for them. Most customers then happily trot off with this list to the tables displaying the plants that are for sale. I find it very satisfying helpingpeople in this way.
Birds and Plants
What has this got to do with birds?
Everything.
Many birds rely on plants for their food as well as for nesting and roosting sites. By careful plant selection we can encourage our native Australian birds to become and remain resident in our gardens. The result can be most satisfying. The colour of the flowers is augmented by the activity of the birds. They not only add their own colour, their movements flitting from flower to flower and from bush to bush adds much in the way of interest. A garden without birds is sterile and uninteresting – to me anyway.
Bird Attracting Plants
This is a huge topic. I will mention only a few of the types of plants we find work in our garden and district. I have already written (in other posts) about the delights of Correas, those beautifully coloured bell shaped flowers that will light up any garden with colour and which are so irresistable to our honeyeaters here in Australia.
The eremophila species (commonly called ‘Emu bushes’) are another attractive species for birds in our gardens. Their curved tubular flowers are nectar treasure troves to our honeyeaters. They come in such a wide range of colours too. Callistemons (or ‘Bottle-brushes’) are plants that can be covered in flowers – and simply filled with honeyeaters getting drunk on the nectar. A flowering bottle-brush plant can aslo be noisy with the screeching of lorikeets or the squabbling of honeyeaters.
Eucalypts (‘gum trees’) offer much for the birds of Australia too. When in flower the honeyeaters, lorikeets and other parrots swarm all over them. The tiny pardalotes have a smorgasbord of insects such as lerp to feast on. Sittellas, shrike-tits, tree-creepers, babblers and currawongs search for insects, beetles and spiders lurking under the bark. Robins and Flycatchers use the branches to sit quietly, watching for passing insects to fly by. Gum trees provide many opportunities for nesting and roosting sites. Older trees provide hollows for nesting parrots, owls, frogmouths and pardalotes.
Many Uses
As I said, this is a vast topic. I have mentioned only four genera of plants. There would be few, if any, Australian native plants that are not used in some way by our birds. Some species show a decided preference for some plant species, but most birds use our plants in a variety of ways.
Galahs in the rain
The Galah is possibly Australia’s best known parrot. We often have flocks of Galahs flying over our house and garden. Sometimes these flocks land in one of the large mallee trees on our 2 hectare (5 acre) property. These flocks vary in size from a half dozen or less up to 50 to a hundred.
During some rain recently I was aware of some noisy Galahs in the tall tree just outside my office. It seemed to be more than the usual few noisy individuals. Sure enough, on checking outside, there were some 60-80 in the tree. No wonder they were noisy. I must have disturbed them because they all took flight. They only went about fifty metres before alighting on the power lines out the front of our place, joining the 250 or so already lined up along the wire.
Large flocks of this size are not unusual. They can be quite noisy when they all start calling together.
Diamond Firetail Finches
Australian Finches would have to be on many people’s lists of beautiful birds. Some, like the Gouldian Finch of northern Australia, are simply stunning. It is no wonder that they are highly popular with aviculturalists.
Diamond Firetail
One of the local finches here in Murray Bridge South Australia is the very beautiful Diamond Firetail (Stagonopleura guttata). It is slightly smaller than the common House Sparrow found in many of our parks and gardens. The Diamond Firetail is widely spread in this district but is not common anywhere. According to the New Atlas of Australian Birds its distribution covers most of south eastern Australia south of a line from Port Augusta to Brisbane. It is not found in Tasmania. (To view map click here)
Description
The Diamond Firetail is a small bird some 12-13cm in size. It has a bright, unmistakable red beak and red rump with a black tail. Its throat and breast is white with a black band across it. The white spotted black flanks give it the appearance of diamonds studded along its sides.
Diamond Firetail Finch
Local occurrences
I have observed this beautiful species in a number of localities near my home. The best sightings have been in our own garden where it is in infrequent visitor. On several occasions it has delighted us in visiting our bird bath. Every time it has been such a brief visit. Its next visit must come soon – it hasn’t been since I bought my new camera. I’d love to get a close up photo of its stunning colours. [UPDATE: the photos on this page were added in March 2007]
An unusual sighting of this species was recorded recently near Callington (about 20km west of here). A large flock of over 35 was reported on Birdpedia. I have usually only seen them in ones or twos.
Diamond Firetail Finch
Laughing Kookaburras
One of Australia’s best known birds is the Kookaburra. There are two species of Kookaburra, the Blue Winged Kookaburra of northern Australia and the Laughing Kookaburra of eastern and southern Australia. The latter is an introduced species in the southern parts of Western Australia. Kookaburras are members of a world-wide family of birds known as kingfishers.
Kookaburras in our garden
Some friends of ours visited us earlier this week. At lunch time we were watching the parade of birds visiting our bird barh. Pam asked, “Do you ever have kookaburras here?” Yes we do – but they are only occasional visitors to our garden. Pity about that because their call is so typically Aussie that we’d love to have them here all the time. They are common along the River Murray which is only about 5km from our place.
Kookaburras at dawn
By contrast, when we stay with our daughter in the Clare Valley in the mid north of South Australia we have often been woken early by the laughter of the resident kookaburra sitting on the television antenna. On second thoughts – the kookaburra’s call may be lovely, romantic and so Australian – but being woken at dawn every day may become tedious.
Cheeky Kookaburra
I have heard of some people having very tame kookaburras in their garden, usually as a result of feeding them. Many years ago while camping in Western Australia I was amazed at the cheek of one of the locals. I had seen a kookaburra sitting on a branch of a nearby tree and thought no more about it. I busied myself cooking our barbecue lunch. A slight turn of my back and – whoosh – down swooped said kookaburra who then flew off with one of our sausages straight off the hot plate. How rude. I hope he enjoyed it. I’m sure he did – I’m an excellent cook!
Common Blackbirds
288 Comments »13th April, 2006; Category: Birds, Blackbirds, Camera, Garden birds, Murray Bridge, Nests, Photos
Common Blackbird (male)
Common Blackbirds are an introduced species in Australia. Their range here is south of a line from Sydney in NSW to Port Lincoln in South Australia and they are found throughout South Eastern Australia, including large parts of Victoria and Tasmania. They are particularly found in parks and gardens where they enjoy scratching around in the leaf litter and mulch for their food. Many gardeners despise the Common Blackbird for their untidy habit of flicking bark, leaves, mulch and sticks on to their nice, neat garden paths.
Beautiful Songbird
The Blackbird may be an introduced species, it may have untidy eating habits but this is more than made up for by its beautiful song. There are few birds in Australia that can match the song of a Blackbird singing in the late winter or spring evenings. It fills the air with a rich melodic harmony.
Breeding
We didn’t have any resident Blackbirds in our garden here on the outskirts of Murray Bridge South Australia until a few years ago. The occasional visitor, yes, but not resident. Now they have moved in and have started breeding. Several times they have used an unusual nesting spot. They fly into a shed in my wife’s nursery through a small gap above the door. They then proceed to make a bowl shaped nest in one of the many empty plant pots we store in the shed. How lovely and cosy – out of the cold, the wind and the rain.
Common Blackbird (female)
Photos
Despite them now being resident I find that “our” blackbirds are quite timid and are rather camera shy. It was with great delight that today I have been able to take some close up shots of both the male and the female (she is a dull brown colour) fossicking for beetles and worms just outside our sunroom window. This makes a perfect bird hide for photography.
UPDATE:
- This article has created quite a deal of interest. Read the comments section below for the experiences of other people with Blackbirds.
- Related articles: Do Blackbirds Swoop? An article about aggressive bird behaviour with many interesting comments and observations from readers of this blog.
- For more articles about Blackbirds nesting read
- “Anyone for a Swim? Forget it Baby Blackbird”
- “Hear the Blackbird singing in the morning”
Update #2: A further update on this post was made in July 2015.