On Watch

This rather disreputable fellow is watching out for the other blackbird that has laid claim to my garden. They meet several times a day. Usually they do a lot of running, one chasing the other. Occasionally they run at each other. As they meet face to face they rise in unison a couple of metres in the air. They rise and fall several times, and all the while a lone female dances around them like a referee.

I don’t know if they actually touch during this manoeuvre because it happens too fast for me to see. Starlings have a similar strategy, but they lock claws and flutter about in tandem.

There are a lot of birds about at present, but there’s constant change in the species. Sadly, the pair of fantails that were here all the time, and were collecting nesting materials, have become rare visitors since the thunder storm with hail. The quail also left with the storms. Still, the flowers on the kowhai tree have brought back the bellbirds, both male and female. Today I have seen and/or heard the male bellbird, waxeyes, blackbirds, a song thrush, a skylark, starlings, goldfinches, a greenfinch, chaffinches, a yellowhammer, house sparrows, dunnocks (hedge sparrow) and Australian magpies. I occasionally see or hear a grey warbler, welcome swallows, and the fantails. The southern black-backed gulls frequently fly over.