It has been a good summer for parrots in our (and our neighbour's) yard, with crimson and eastern rosellas, king parrots and finally just recently cockatoos stopping in to make an appearance. We only grew more sunflowers and cosmos than last year (while we knew they liked the sunflowers, the cosmos was a surprise) and with a pretty long flowering season, with the first volunteers up early and us being able to keep up with the garden, we have had parrots in the backyard pretty much every day for three months. Last year we covered our sunflowers so we could harvest the seeds, but this year gave free reign over to the birds for them to enjoy. It was especially entertaining to watch them eat the cosmos seeds. While the eastern rosellas would jump onto the plants, the crimson rosellas (who are just a tad larger) would usually just hop along the back fence and try to get the seeds without jumping onto the plants.
We only noticed the birds' visits to our neighbour's yard because some weeds on their side of the fence went to seed which the eastern especially enjoyed (and our cats enjoyed watching them, being close to our window.) There is also an apple tree next to the fence, which the crimson rosellas liked to eat. They'll be disappointed if they think there will be apples in our yard for them to eat when (hopefully) we have apples next year!
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| Crimson rosellas in the apple tree |
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Galahs overhead. Even though we see galahs every day, I have
never seen them venture inside the fence of our yard, sticking
to the grass on the far side of the fence next to the street. |
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| Sitting on the green bean trellis |
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| Eastern rosella, hiding in the cosmos |
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| King parrot |
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| Om nom nom |
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Our neighbour's apple tree (and this is why we will cover
our fruit trees next year when we have fruit...) |
The apples have all fallen from the tree now but the birds are still coming to our yard for flower seeds, and now the Chinese pistachio tree seeds! This appeals to the bigger birds, king parrots and sulphur-crested cockatoos. It is really funny to step outside and hear the sound of many little beaks nibbling coming from the tree. Our second round of sunflowers have also recently started blooming, and the birds have been a bit impatient this time and haven't even waited for the flowers to open before they start to nibble on them.
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| Cockatoo eating the Chinese pistachio tree seeds |
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Either a juvenile king parrot or a female, the colors are similar
so it's hard for me to tell. |
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