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Had a most amusing early morning watching a male
fairy-wren in beautiful blue plumage, being pursued all around my back garden by
4 persistently piping fledglings. They were often in a tight bouncing bunch
right on his tail, showing yellow gapes, tails flicking, making no attempt to
feed themselves while he was in constant search for insects. When one was fed,
it would stop piping, fluff up a bit and look constipated for a very short
while, then hop off again to join the other three. Later another adult joined
him briefly, and next he had only one in attendance so he was, after
all, getting a bit of help. Last evening he had 3 in tow.
Would have been a wonderful photo op.
The noise of the fledglings is all over the back
gardens. The high thin tone of the calls makes it very hard to tell where they
are, illustrating the effectiveness of this contact call in making it
difficult for predators to pin point the callers' exact positions.
Also had Yellow-faced Honeyeaters hawking with
beaks full of insects for their nestlings in a nearby bit of woodland, and
Silvereyes are feeding 2 nestlings in a small citrus next door.
They must all be thankful for the small amount of
heavy rain we had early last evening but we still need MORE.
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