Rainbow lorrikeets make short work of the sunflowers. All photos by Liane Arno
By Liane Arno
IT WON’T take many guesses for you to work out why we named our newly purchased home, Blackberry House. The blackberry canes completely covered the quarter acre block.
They crept up over the enormous fig tree in the back yard as they sought the sun and crested at around 4 metres off the ground.
On quite a steep block, we looked out from the back verandah and thought that the blackberries stopped at the shed we could see poking out the back. A shed we thought was on the next door property – but no, it was on ours – but there was no way we could reach it without machete in hand! It was something out of Sleeping Beauty.
IT WON’T take many guesses for you to work out why we named our newly purchased home, Blackberry House. The blackberry canes completely covered the quarter acre block.
They crept up over the enormous fig tree in the back yard as they sought the sun and crested at around 4 metres off the ground.
On quite a steep block, we looked out from the back verandah and thought that the blackberries stopped at the shed we could see poking out the back. A shed we thought was on the next door property – but no, it was on ours – but there was no way we could reach it without machete in hand! It was something out of Sleeping Beauty.
It took two huge 6 metre long waste bins to clear all the blackberries – only to discover that the block, which was essentially a sand dune, was covered in ratty old carpets to stop the weeds. Not sure they were a success. So … they had to go!
A medley of rainbow lorikeets, king parrot and galahs And then the process of bringing vegetation onto the block. We, like so many, love birds and so we opted for plants that attracted them. We also encouraged them to visit by feeding them with seeds. I can’t tell you my excitement when the first native birds started to arrive. Better still when the sunflower seeds started self-seeding and the lorikeets started munching on them. People think we are mad to have our fruit trees and vegie patch un-netted. But we figure there is enough for everyone.
Life has now become a series of missed photo opportunities as I try to take photos of the latest visitors or inhabitants. We discovered we had tiny pardalotes when they came to raid our fig tree, which is now thriving and bountiful having been freed of its weight of blackberry canes. They are so tiny they are smaller than our figs. As they nest in burrows we now live in fear of destroying their nest as we weed the garden. We have even had a tiny ice blue budgerigar find its way to us in autumn. Obviously an ‘escapee’ but he visited us for about two months before the icy cold months descended.
We have taken such joy during this lockdown period in spotting the birds. We have now counted 27 different bird varieties that come to visit us. Incredible to think in a yard of just a quarter acre.
National Bird Week starts on October 19 – and for the first time we will be participating. There is an app you can download called Aussie Bird Count which has a bird identification function and then record what you see. So – come on – here is the challenge. How many varieties can you spot?
Life has now become a series of missed photo opportunities as I try to take photos of the latest visitors or inhabitants. We discovered we had tiny pardalotes when they came to raid our fig tree, which is now thriving and bountiful having been freed of its weight of blackberry canes. They are so tiny they are smaller than our figs. As they nest in burrows we now live in fear of destroying their nest as we weed the garden. We have even had a tiny ice blue budgerigar find its way to us in autumn. Obviously an ‘escapee’ but he visited us for about two months before the icy cold months descended.
We have taken such joy during this lockdown period in spotting the birds. We have now counted 27 different bird varieties that come to visit us. Incredible to think in a yard of just a quarter acre.
National Bird Week starts on October 19 – and for the first time we will be participating. There is an app you can download called Aussie Bird Count which has a bird identification function and then record what you see. So – come on – here is the challenge. How many varieties can you spot?