Unusual visitors – Goldfinches
I was collecting the daily newspaper from the driveway yesterday when my attention was attracted to an unusual bird call in the tree next to our driveway. Unusual for our garden, that is. European Goldfinches are widespread in various parts of southern Australia. There is a small population near the railway station here in Murray Bridge, 80km SE of Adelaide. It’s just that they are not even regular visitors to our garden, so the call attracted my attention. In fact, I think we’ve only ever had them here in our garden on two or three other occasions in 30 years.
The two birds didn’t stay long – just long enough to confirm the sighting through my binoculars. So – you will have to put up with an old photo taken in our garden some years ago.
European Goldfinch
Spiny-cheeked honeyeater on a hot day
Spiny-cheeked honeyeater
On any given hot day in our garden there is a constant stream of birds coming in to drink from our various bird baths. Even on mild days we can be entertained for hours at a time watching the parade of birds as we sit in our sun room just a few metres from several of the bird baths. It is a wonderful distraction – but not so good when I have a writing deadline to meet.
About a half dozen honeyeater species come to the water on a regular daily basis, including the Spiny-cheeked honeyeater shown in today’s series of photos. The individual shown in the photos looks particularly stressed by the heat. We’ve had a record breaking series of hot days and heat waves this summer and the heat really takes its toll on our bird life.
I’ve said it on a number of occasions on this site before: the one really positive thing you can do to encourage birdlife in your garden is to provide fresh water for them to drink and bathe. Be sure to keep the container clean and topped up daily using fresh water. Forget feeding them; this is discouraged in Australia (for a whole range of reasons), but provide water and plenty of it.
There are several benefits:
- It helps the birds to survive on hot days.
- It attracts more birds to your garden.
- It helps you to observe them at close range and if seen through a window nearby, the birds are completely safe.
- The birds really do enjoy it.
Spiny-cheeked honeyeater
Spiny-cheeked honeyeater
Spiny-cheeked honeyeater
Dusky Woodswallow
Dusky Woodswallow
I took this series of photos during one of our periods of heat waves recently. As I’ve written in recent days, we had here in South Australia one of our hottest summers on record. The bird baths in our garden were extremely popular with all the bird species in our garden. They probably assisted some of them to survive the extreme conditions, with temperatures often reaching into the 40s and occasionally as high as 46C (115F).
The Dusky Woodswallow shown in today’s photos is one species I would regard as an infrequent visitor to our garden. It is an even less frequent visitor to our bird baths, so this was a good sighting.
Dusky Woodswallow
Make room for me
White-winged choughs
We have many different species come to visit our bird baths. They come either for a drink or for a bath – sometimes both. Many of these species are quite small, such as the thornbills and pardalotes. At the other end of the scale where size is considered would have to be the Little Ravens, Grey Currawongs and of course, the White-winged Choughs, featured in today’s photos.
This series of photos was taken during our recent heat wave in South Australia. Our capital city Adelaide saw a 117 year record broken: 13 days over 40C over the summer, previously 11 days. Here in Murray Bridge we certainly have more than that. During hot weather the birds flock to the water throughout the day. Refilling the baths is a daily task.
The White-winged Choughs all seem to crowd onto the one bird bath, each wanting a piece of the action. It is quite comical to witness the jostling and arguing over the prime positions. Sensible birds take up a position on one of the other bird baths nearby.
White-winged choughs
White-winged choughs
Giving an evil eye?
No Comments »23rd February, 2014; Category: Bird baths, Bird Behaviour, Garden birds, Magpies and Currawongs
Grey Currawong
When we bought our home some 30 years ago we never heard or saw Grey Currawongs in our garden or anywhere on our five acre block. They are moderately common and widespread in the district, and this is also true throughout their normal range in southern Australia so it was surprising that we never saw this species in the first decade we lived here.
It appears that several birds moved into the mallee scrub area up the road about a kilometre on a hill overlooking our property. When they called – something which happened only occasionally – we were aware of their presence.
About ten years ago several individuals would occasionally either fly over head, or settle briefly in one of our trees before moving on. This happened every month or so. About five years ago a pair started frequently following their offspring onto our property. These visits occurred every few days.
Now they are relatively regular visitors, even coming to our bird bath on hot days. When they do this it gives me a great opportunity to take a series of photos, like those shown today. These were taken last week during our most recent heat wave.
Grey Currawong
When you have close up views of this species you suddenly realise how big they are, compared with most of the birds which visit the bird baths. They are much larger than the Australian Magpie-larks, a little larger than Australian Magpies and even the Little Raven. They are certainly much larger than the many honeyeaters which come to drink, and the dainty pardalotes, thornbills and silvereyes are positively minuscule in comparison.
And how about that glaring eye?
Positively gives me a creepy feeling.
Grey Currawong
Grey Currawong
Grey Currawong