Thanks Fractelle and PALEIF

I do only put out a small quantity and it's not there for them on a regular basis so it seems I mightn't be doing any harm. The main birds it seems to attract are king parrots, pale-headed rosellas and bar-shouldered doves.

The perching area is quite small so that probably precludes the cockatoos. Our neighbours have a much larger tray and it does attract the cockatoos but fortunately not in troublesome proportions. We're in Queensland and my feeling is they don't often reach the plague-like numbers that they can in Victoria, or certainly not where we are. A couple of times a year the black cockatoos move in and demolish the flowerheads on the wallum banksias, but then they're gone.

The only food we actually give to the kookaburras is a worm here and there when we're gardening. We only need to have a spade or fork in our hand and we soon have a kookaburra or two sitting patiently on the ground beside us watching our every move!

I agree with the need for providing water. If you have it at a reasonble depth it makes a great bath for them too and adds to the entertainment value.

Fractelle - "..my seat at the PC looks out onto bushland.."

So does mine. It is just the best outlook, don't you think - so peaceful and calming. I've just upgraded to a more comfortable chair too. I think I'm in real danger of becoming addicted to this little space!

Wouldnt it be nice to start a thread about all the wonderful moments we have shred with our wildlife and animals.

Something happy for a change and hopefully a way to encourage others to think a little more about birds and animals in general.


Its so good to know there are people like Bronwyn , Fractelle and yourself about.
One last quick run down on how smart these birds are. Twice a day I go to feed the horses. Its big acerage with a river flat but its partly on the corner of a busy highway.

The very second the car turns in there they are- blop onto the gate before you have had time to turn the key off.

Then they follow you around like dogs as you fix the feed and head off to the water troff.

Every year you can watch the family grow as the Mums bring along the young ones.

Sometimes mum goes crook on them for getting two close to the horses legs.

Then I come back and do it all over again at the house with Lorys and all sorts.

Its a ritual and dont think they dont know your late on Sundays as they peck peck tap tap on your window where your are sleeping but wouldnt have it any other way.

There is no reason to be scared of these birds because they are so smart and gentle.

All people have to do is befriend them .I dont think people appreciate things sometimes until there are gone and I couldnt imagine waking up and not hearing the birds in the trees each morning.

Enjoy your chairs ladies as you both have the gift of understanding what important in life!

Pale,Bronwyn,Fractelle:

Isn`t it refreshing to be able to discuss the joys and the attributes of the natural wildlife that choose to share their environment with us?

It certainly brings a ray of sunshine to a world that seems to be dominated by power, greed and hatred.

We people that inhabit the rural areas are truly lucky that we have the time and the opportunity to appreciate the finer things in life,...things that the average city-dweller never gets to see or appreciate as he or she rushes backwards and forwards in the maelstrom of modern day living.

I have two young maggies ( not coloured-up yet ) sitting outside in the trees singing their little hearts out! They are real characters who never miss a trick, are sticky-beaks (pun), and have to be part of the action regardless of what is occurring outside, be it gardening, car maintenance or whatever.

It is amazing to watch these "wild" creatures, playing "dead" or rolling backwards and forwards as they entertain each other in their daily time-passing rituals. ....Like children it is a shame to see them grow up and face the world of maturity and become staid and serious in their own breeding pattern, leaving behind their own simple and carefree lifestyle as nature takes it`s natural course.

"Ain`t nature wonderful!"

Like Bronwyn, I could sit here all day watching the soap-opera that soars around my window.

This time of year is extra entertaining with the demands of young birds and territorial struggles. I find it hilarious to watch a tiny wren chase off a couple of magpies - unbelievable.

My King parrot couple actually cling to the window frame and stare directly in at me - that was how they got me feeding them in the first place. Rosellas don't seem to be as smart about windows though.

I hope everyone enjoys the following cartoon:

http://images.ucomics.com/comics/nq/2008/nq080930.gif

Cheers

"Enjoy your chairs ladies as you both have the gift of understanding what important in life!"

Ah, PALEIF, I love that! I'll keep your words firmly in mind next time I'm moved to guilt at hubby's little digs about the amount of time I spend in this chair!

"Isn`t it refreshing to be able to discuss the joys and the attributes of the natural wildlife that choose to share their environment with us?"

I agree, Cuphandle. Your thread is a welcome little haven, down near the bottom of the list, that I can retreat to with joy after having battled my OLO opponents on feminism, religion, refugees, Wall Street collapses and all the other weighty issues of our world! I similarly enjoyed escaping down to Pelican's thread at one stage when Forrest took it over and wrote a wonderful OLO epic, chapter by chapter, with Fractelle as the leading lady.

It's great to have a warm and light-hearted thread, at the bottom of the discussion list, to escape to at the end of a harrowing session of OLO debating! Thanks for providing us with this one.

One of the things I miss most about my life here in China is the lack of wildlife.

Next to the college I was teaching at this summer in Cambridge was a large strip of fen land which was given to the town 800 years ago upon which to graze their "beasts". On my second morning there some fellow teachers went into stitches at the sight of me, at 6 in the misty morning, tightly hugging a cow and whispering sweet nothings into its bewildered and fly-bedecked ear.

I had to explain that it was three years since I had had that warm contact with a species other than the human one, and the smell and texture of living animals is something I missed greatly.

For the first time in my life even dogs run away from me here because we foreigners, with dairy in our diet, smell strange to them. (Ditto for babies which bawl loudly when you approach!)It saddens me unutterably.

At times I think longingly of gold and orange sunsets in Caloundra or Bribie where the trees come alive with hundreds and hundreds of green and pink and yellow birds all shrieking bedtime instructions at each other, or of my own maggies who would sit on my verandah railing whistling a South African ditty I had taught them.

Enjoy, people, enjoy - entirely free of guilt. We shouldn't ever run the risk of taking any of this for granted: - it defines the quality of our lives and adds the colour to it.