A post for my dear friends Joanna and Brian…
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We have some amazingly colourful birds in Australia. And because of the leafiness of many of our suburbs, whole flocks can often be found in residential areas.
While driving past Ashfield Park last week, I spotted a large number of galahs. Either the grass was going to seed, or the council had thrown seed on the brown patches in an attempt to rejuvenate the lawn, but either way, the birds were feasting…
Galahs are a variety of cockatoo, which in turn is a type of parrot…
Interestingly, the word “galah” is old Aussie slang for a fool…
A few of the birds were happily dustbathing…
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Closer to home, our neighbour Mark is feeding an entire flock of rainbow lorikeets (also a parrot)…
They perch on his clothesline every day at four o’clock and call out to him…
Mark informs me that the ones with redder plumage are males, and the yellower breasted ones are females. He can tell them apart, but I can’t…
The lorikeets are vividly coloured, but the shades vary from species to species…
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Despite appearing drab compared to the parrots, we love our little soldier birds. More correctly known as noisy miners, these native birds are a completely different species to the introduced Indian mynahs (which are invasive pests)…
They’re quite a friendly bird with a distinctive peeping call, and they’ll often let us get quite close to them…
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Pete’s aunt and uncle live in an apartment right in the middle of the city. This sulphur crested cockatoo occasionally stops by to say hello. Thankfully he hasn’t done any damage – cockies can be brutal on wood and outdoor furniture…
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A few previously posted photos – when our lilly pilly tree and camellias are in flower, we’re often visited by red wattlebirds (named for the red flaps on their necks)…
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A few years ago, they were cuckooed into feeding this enormous Australian koel chick…
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Finally, a couple of neighbourhood birds that never stay still long enough for me to get a photo of them!
We have native grey butcherbirds, our local singers. They have a distinct three-note call which everyone on our street knows well (photo below from Wikipedia). At present, there is a breeding pair with a juvenile residing in one of the street trees…
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Equally fast-moving are the Australian magpies that swoop into our yard (photo below also from Wiki). The magpies and butcherbirds are related species…
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If you’re interested in Australian birds, the Birds in the Backyard website has oodles of information, including a fabulous collection of forty bird calls, mostly taped from around the Sydney area. As I’m sitting here drafting this post at 5.45am, I can hear the noisy miners’ dawn calls!
What birds share your neighbourhood with you?
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
Beautifully captured shots Celia and best of all, none of these lovely birds are in cages. :-D
Have a wonderful week ahead.
:-) Mandy xo
There are so many birds around here Mandy, we can usually hear them all calling from outside!
Lovely birds.
Thanks Pat. It’s so mild here in winter that we have birds year round.
[…] fear, Fig Jam and Lime Cordial has a nice blog up on the birds in […]
Enjoyed your post, Celia! Beautiful pictures and that website you mentioned is fascinating–Thankyou!
Debby, it’s a great website, isn’t it? We’ve learnt so much from it, particularly the bird calls.
Beautiful birds! Nice post.
Thanks Manuela! Because Australia is so far away from everywhere else, we have a lot of quite distinct native birds.
For me your birds are quite exotic and colorful! :)
Thanks Laila! They’re exotic and colourful to me too – I never grow tired of seeing them (although I’m not so keen on being swooped by them). :)
Beautiful birds indeed! Thanks for sharing the bird call link, will come in handy in the future…I’m not very good at identifying English birds, but I do know a sweet little robin when I see one and surprisingly (to me) you do quite often in London. We also have wood pigeons and a pair of crows in our street and occasionally seagulls, although we’re nowhere near the sea (but I love to hear them)!
Danielle, the other bird we have a lot of are the native crested pigeons – I didn’t get a photo of those either, but here’s one from wiki:
Celia, you’ve captured these photographs so beautifully! I love bird watching and so thank you for the links to those web sites! We have families of wrens and silver eyes nesting in the shrubbery in our garden. And we really enjoyed the wattle birds this year, who visited our flowering flax plants!
Liz, isn’t it interesting what different birds you have in Canberra from us! The wattle birds haven’t been back this year – I think they’ve found better fruit pickings elsewhere.. :)
We, of course, have similar birds around us. We have a trio of Noisy Miners who have roosted each night in the tree off our balcony since they were fledglings a couple of years ago. There are also Currawongs, plus Kookaburra’s who are resident at our neighbouring Sydney Park apartments. At Taylors Arm additionally there are King Parrots, Rosellas, a variety of finches and wrens, bowerbirds, native doves and pigeons, and most spectacularly Black Cockatoos who love the villages plentiful tree fodder, particularly peppercorn and macadamia. We hear but rarely see Bird’s of Paradise and owls.
As your gorgeous pics and description evidences the birds very much make themselves part of the neighborhood culture. We feel privileged they share it with us, and treat us with such familiarity.
ED, we get currawongs as well, but I only know that because I hear their distinctive call, I don’t often actually see them. What gorgeous birds you have at Taylors Arm – I’m yet to spot a black cockie, but I keep looking out for them. And I heard about a neighbour who had an owl in her backyard recently! :)
Wonderful Celia. I love seeing and hearing (mostly) the Australian birds and it is the thing I always notice when we’ve been away and first come home again, the absence of birds in my day. Your photos are excellent. :)
Ardys, we’re all benefiting from the greening of our suburbs – it amazes me that we get so many birds here, and we’re less than 10k from the city centre! :)
Beautiful pictures and handy little facts there :-)
Thanks Sandy!
There is a reserve behind our backyard and we get all sorts of birds. There are a few resident Kookaburras as well. It appears that we have the noisy miners as well (which I did think were the Indian mynas) who attack our hedge when it is in flower. I’m quite surprised at the diversity of birds found in the average backyard.
Lien, we only ever seem to see Kookaburras on holidays! Must be amazing to back onto a reserve!
oh celia..i love your post and i love birds..i have heaps visiting my garden mainly to drink and wash in my bird baths which i refresh several times a day especially in the really hot weather..it’s quite funny to see them patiently lining up for a turn..and the magpies are very entertaining to watch as they bathe and then settle in the dirt, wings outstretched, to dry..i’ve had a family of four visiting every day this summer..i also have a large chinese pot filled with water that the wattle birds dive into and drink from..luckily i was home one day to assist a bird that couldn’t get out because the water level was low..x
Jane, we often have them bathing in our pond as well, funny little things they are. Our wattle birds haven’t been back for a while, but they have such a distinct call that we always know when they’re visiting! :)
This is a great post, but I hope you’ll say something to your neighbour about feeding the lorikeets white bread. Eeeeek. It makes them sick and often means their babies grow up stunted/unable to fly because they’re not getting the nutrition they need. They should be feed fruit or nectar, not bread or seeds.
It’s not the only thing they eat, they also get lots of fruit. :) They were making short work of his persimmon tree yesterday! (I took the photo out though, so that other people don’t think it’s a good idea. Thanks!)
Your birds are spectacular! We have cardinals, and blue jays, blue birds and woodpeckers, goldfinch and chickadees and robins. All beautiful and backyard- but not like yours.
They all sound beautiful Heidi! And so different to ours! We seem to have so many parrots around! :)
Oh Celia ~ how delightful! This post is a real keeper!! Living right in the middle of a parkland development in the Southern Highlands, nestled into the Thirlmere Lakes National Park, methinks you’ll believe that never ever can I look out of the window or go outside to see all of these and more. Have you ever had the big bright green King Island parrot anywheres near you? The pick of the bunch!! My back door faces onto one of the parks and I have just counted a flock of some 30 sulphur cresteds actually ‘grazing’!! The noisy miners get screamed at by me: here they are terribly bold and a nuisance to all the smaller pets who are terrified of them! But my favourites are the kookaburras: here every day morning and night to eat all the fatty bits we cut off our food! Thanks so much for this terrific pictorial story!!
Eha, no nothing like a King Island parrot – it must be amazing where you live! I’m quite fond of the noisy miners, but I don’t like the Indian mynahs at all! Or the ibises – yech, grotty birds. We do get lovely cormorans by the water as well!
Aren’t we blessed indeed with such wonderful bird life Celia! We get heaps of crimson rosellas, eastern rosellas, galahs, magpies, finches and blue wrens and Willy wagtails. More rare are some king parrots, grass parrots and black cockatoos. We actually never get sparrows at home either for some reason even though there are plenty around. Lots of little birds nest in our hedges every year and we are hopeful that the hollow tree stump we put up in a tree will bring a pair family soon. The cat did catch a little finch once, but we made it clear that was out of bounds and she left it alone for the months of rehabilitation we gave the birdy until it’s wing healed up and could be released. I love being visited by my little feathered friends, although a couple of chookies would make me even happier! Xox
Becca, your backyard sounds like a bird haven! How fabulous! I wish you could have a few chooks, you’d love them! xxx
Now I wonder why I never see the grey butcher birds??…hmmm
Aren’t we lucky to have so many magnificent birds.
Brydie, they’re so fast! We only ever see them up high on the wires or swooping down to grab food! :)
I love bird calls so I will be off now to follow the link :)
Tandy, I’m smiling at the thought that you might be listening to the same sounds that I’m hearing hear in Sydney! x
We used to get loads of birds on our balcony in Mosman. i miss them but sometimes they were so noisy! My favourites were the cockatoos and kookburras!
Kookaburras can be SO noisy! :)
The lorikeets , kookaburras and cockatoos are legion around Avalon- but the King Parrots are the best visual treat of all.
I must look out for the King Parrots – I don’t think I’ve ever seen one!
beautiful pics!
Thanks Nic!
Thankyou so much for sharing your local birds with us, they are so bouncy and big. I saw parrakeets in London yesterday, shrieking around in Hyde Park in the gloom, bright green. They still don’t ‘fit’ with the landscape here. The red kites too were out, looking for food on and around the motorways, they are big handsome birds. Lovely set of photos darling, particularly like your neighbour’s lorrikeets !
Red kites! That sent me off to google images – what magnificent birds!
I love these so much!! :-) You captured amazing shots here. :-)
Thank you! It was a fun project! :)
All the birds are gorgeous. I love the images you took. Amazing you were able to capture such images – you must have a lot of patience xx
Thanks Charlie – I did spend half an hour stalking the galahs at the park.. ;-)
I so enjoyed seeing all the photos of birds native to your area. Thank you for sharing them, Celia.
Karen, I’m so pleased you liked them. It’s nice to be able to share a bit of our part of the world with you all.
Great bird photos!! Mine usually turn out as whatever space with random bird shaped blobs. Ah well.. I’ll just have to enjoy seeing them in the parks.. :-)
Saucy, try as I might, I couldn’t capture the magpies or the butcherbirds – they were just going to quickly and the only time they stopped was to perch up high on the wires! :)
I love noisy minors and used to feed them when we lived in the city. They are out here in places near where we live but have never been spotted on our property. I used to feed the magpies when we lived in Western Australia. The funniest thing was that everyone else in our street had problems with magpies swooping them from their nests in the tall pines but they never once swooped us. I am sure the neighbours thought that we had magic powers ;) (the power of bread). I love birds. Cheers for that website :)
Hehe…my neighbour parks his car under the big tree where the lorikeets perch, and it’s never been shat on, smart birds those. :)
Parrots are VERY smart. They know which side of their bread is buttered ;)
What beautiful birds you have there. We don’t get the colorful ones until the summer but during the winter there are plenty of little chickadees out at our feeder. Unfortunately we’ve also had a couple of blue jays right at the crack of dawn waking me up…no, not the calls but from pecking on the side of the house beside my bedroom window! One of the most amazing birds that we have year round are the red headed woodpeckers – you cannot believe what a perfect round hole they can make in a tree.
I can’t wait for summer though because then we get our gorgeous & colorful hummingbirds at a feeder I have by the kitchen windows. One is so iridescent that he absolutely glows. Now you’ve got me longing for the warm weather when I can sit on the porch and listen to them all sign.
Now that noisy miner bird you mention – is that the same as what’s called a bell bird? When I was there, I visited the Dandenongs & there was a tree filled with birds that I was told were called bell birds – they sounded so beautiful.
Diane, I think these are the bell miners – different but related species:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Miner
And how absolutely glorious to have hummingbirds visiting!! Will you please take photos for us? xx
I have a few photos & some video but haven’t been able to figure out the video with this new Windows 8 garbage. For some reason, I tend to get the males who are so gorgeous in color while my neighbor across the street gets the females. The females all eat together at the station while the males! Yikes, it a war zone out there and the males just don’t share. Sort of like watching a Star Wars with lasers because they really go after each other.
Thanks for the info on the bell miners – I just remember standing there listening to this tinkling kind of noise & thinking how that must be what heaven sounds like.
Must be something else, Diane! I’ve watched wildlife docos on hummingbirds, and they seem to shimmer and glow when they’re hovering, just amazing!
The funnies thing with these hummingbirds is that the feeder is over the deck where the barbeque grill is and my husband will be out there grilling while they’re buzzing all around his head. Not afraid at all. And they’re so curious – if we’re sitting on the porch it’s not unusual to have them hover over someone’s shoulder just looking at what’s going on.
I don’t know if you like animated features, but there were fabulous cartoon hummingbirds in Disney’s Epic! :)
What beautiful photos Celia. We have big gum trees in our backyard and also get lorikeets here. They are just stunning with all their colours. We also get a lot of crows and magpies. i know some people don’t like crows but l don’t mind them and l love the sound of the magpies.We also put bread scraps out on the back lawn so all sorts of other birds come in(don’t know all their breeds). Aren’t we lucky in this country with our flora, fauna and wildlife:)
Jody, we really are so lucky! I’ve only taken photos of the easy to spot ones, but there are so many others around. I often hear them rather than see them!
Love this post, Celia. I remember seeing galahs and a lorikeets when I was in Oz. Here, the most you’ll see is a pair of lorikeets in a cage. It is so remarkable to see these birds in flocks in the wild. I never did see a cockatoo, though I wish I had.
They can be cranky destructive birds, John, but they are magnificent! :)