It's been nearly 2 months since I joined the group. It's marvellous & most interesting to be part of a group of people who are interested in birds. I noticed this evening that I've made 23 posts which is a quite a few more than I'd have predicted. My how time flies.
I recall as a youngster drawing birds of paradise copied from a book but my real interest in birds started when I was holidaying on Orpheus Island near Innisfail in Qld in about 1975. I was fascinated by a long, curved-beaked bird with vivid yellow & dark blue colouring flitting in the Casuarina (I think it was) above my head. That evening I happened to be with a couple of the staff, one of whom, Leonie, had the Readers Digest Complete Book of Australian Birds. Lo & behold, not to mention coincidentally, there was a sunbird, the very bird that had fascinated me earlier, on the dusk jacket. The next day Leonie ran past me, binoculars in hand, to the beach, yelling that she'd heard that x species was on the sand, the first time it'd been seen in the area in y years.
This confluence of events totally intrigued me & when I returned home I joined the SA Ornithological Society & the rest is history.
My wife & I bought a house on 1.5 ha on the south eastern slopes of the Mt Lofty Ranges in 1987 & have been revegetating it with indigenous species & using minimum disturbance bushcare techniques to restore as faithfully as possible what we think was once there. The previous owners had done a little revegetation but mainly with WA species. Many of these are dying out now. In the meantime, we've recorded over 120 bird species on our property.
We're now concentrating on establishing understorey species, including native grasses, & have noticed an enormous increase in the butterfly & moth populations this year.
It's been a wonderful experience & I wouldn't have missed it for quids.
Interesting story Woko and welcome to the forum. Hope to hear more from you in the future.
Cheers, Owen.
Welcome Woko, I love everything you are doing, we have been doing just the same where we live.( only, that we had to take many european plants out) The only thing missing at your place, seems to be a frog pond !? Good luck with everything!!
M-L
Thanks Araminta. And I hope your place is developing well.
We took out the few European plants growing at our place when we moved in - excepting the rosemary (is that European?) which attracts saltbush blue butterflies & the fuscia which I had hoped would attract eastern spinebills. The fuscia has gone now since it didn't fulfill its appropriate role. Funnily enough we had our first eastern spinebill (that I've seen, anyway) about 2 weeks ago. It was feeding on eremophila flowers. I haven't seen it since, tho'.
Oh, yes, and I overlooked the Pinus radiata trees from the US which are beginning to die out naturally but which provide food for yellow-tailed black cockatoos. I'm hoping that the cockatoos will become interested in the Casuarina fruits, of which there are rapidly increasing numbers, as the pine trees die out. If they show interest I'll give the pine trees a helping hand.
As for the frog pond: our part of the Mt Lofty Ranges is in the rain shadow so it needs to rain consistently & heavily for water to gather in the small, porous dams we have. That's when we normally hear frogs. Lately I've heard one from the vicinity of our sewage outfall so that might spark an interest from a white-faced heron or 2.