A warm welcome to two new followers....and visitors to our garden

Welcome Hanna and Traci

I am delighted with the way this mini community is growing and feel honoured - I wonder how you all find out about this little ramble of mine. You are so welcome Hanna and Traci, thank you for visiting and becoming Followers. I have visited your lovely blogs too and there are many lovely things to look at there. Sorry it has taken so long to post this welcome, I've been waiting to finish off a few things to take photos of the cottages but it has been delaying it too long - so again, you are welcome and thanks!

Some of our favourite visitors to our garden

 Rainbow Lorikeets fly overhead and are in the trees around our house but there is just one family that visit our back garden.  sometimes it's just the parents, sometimes they have a young one with them.  I love lorikeets.  I know they are hated in areas where they have been introduced and have become a pest, but here they are in their natural habitat and they are lovely.They are so cheeky, I really like their call though it isn't the most beautiful.  They can be tamed to come and eat out of your hand but we haven't tried to do that.  When we go out of our kitchen door to watch them they squawk at us in protest but at least they don't fly away any more and gradually they are getting used to us getting a bit closer. We don't feed them, but want to provide lots of native plants to encourage them to the garden.

We have a Robyn Gordon grevillea growing by the fence at the end of the little porch at the back of our house and it attracts nectar-feeding birds. There are constant territorial squabbles with the Wattle Birds complaining about any other bird coming into the grevillea and the lorikeets arguing back.  Eastern spinebills and tiny nectar-eating birds which we call 'greenies' and yellow-crested honeyeaters also love this grevillea, which at the moment is about 8-9 ft high.  It is difficult to choose a time to prune it back because it never stops flowering.  The birds love it and we love watching the birds.

 

Recently I was watching the antics of two of them and took my camera to the door to try for some photos. One of the birds was working the rear of the shrub, one was more to the front. He stopped to have a look at me then went on with his search for nectar.

When they get into the shrub, they do all sorts of acrobatics to get to the nectar in the flowers - it is really amusing to watch.  But can be difficult to get a photograph!  I was clicking away for quite a while to get some nice clear ones like this on the left.

I moved down off the porch and onto the grass, very slowly while he kept an eye on me.  After a while he stopped occasionally, looked at me and squawked.  I spoke back and he squawked again, then went on searching for nectar.

Finally though, the bird had had enough.  It stopped feeding and looked at me with its beady eye, staring hard.  I spoke to it and it squawked back.  We repeated the exchange several times.  If I lowered the camera, it relaxed.  When I raised the camera it squawked me lol.  In the end, when moving right out to the end of the branch and staring fixedly at me didn't work, he gave a final screech and flew off.  But he was back within the half hour and regularly every day since so obviously it didn't put him off too much,.  And he is getting used to us being out and around in the back yard - just doesn't like that camera!