Sunday, November 21, 2010

The Mating Game


We love to sit on the verandah and watch the birds in the garden. We have been watching with delight the courting of a pair of grey fantails. These little birds are quite fearless and often join us on the verandah, sitting on the rail or even perching on a spare chair.

We watched their nest building, marvelling in the delicately woven nest, built from spider webs from the verandah eaves just in front of the kitchen window. As the nest progressed we chuckled at the little creatures as they added soft strands to the inside of the nest then sat in the nest and spun around shaping it to fit perfectly.

The camellia they have chosen for their nest is right up against a verandah post and we have to pass within a metre of the nest everytime we go into the garden. They seem to have no objection to us stopping to have a chat, watching us with bright eyes and no sign of fear.

On cool days they snuggle right down, but on warmer days they seem to sit quite high in the nest. We are just hoping they escape the notice of the marauding wattle birds. We have also noticed a couple of little ravens on the back lawn recently. Not sure whether they would attack a nest, but they haven't been around before.

They've been sitting for just over a week now and we are getting quite excited about the forthcoming happy event. We have had numerous blackbird nests close to the house, but this is a first.

Yesterday we also spied a very large koala in one of our gum trees. He was gone today, but he'll be back.

Liz


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