if my garden was tidy, and I would rake the leaves off the ground, (like some of my neighbours do every Sunday), all those little birds would not live in my garden, it would be silent and boring. Here is one of two, I saw earlier.
They are so well camouflaged, I almost missed them.
It must be wonderful to have so many visitors to your gardens. This one is precious. I don't get any small birds anymore. It has been suggested that the noisy miners (sp?) drive everything they can out, and from my observations, they certainly are territorial.
Karen
Brisbane southside.
I'm very lucky to not have any birds that chase little birds away. Early in the season I get some Wattlebirds, but they leave when they have finished their breeding, and they never worry about the little ground birds, only about the Honey Eaters.
M-L
Sorry, I have tried to change the mistake "lucky", but I wasn't lucky, it didn't work.
M-L
I think your garden has plenty of shrubs, low plants & untidiness which provide cover for the smaller birds, Araminta. That's if I'm not mistaken!
That's right Woko, I'm not a tidy person, (not even inside the house, after all the spiders need food too. LOL). I have very dense understorey in places and some open paddock for the horse. We also have a "poo pile" (horse poo that is), birds love it , lots of insects in there. I'm very lucky to have a neighbour who can't look after(?) his 120 ac, it is a jungle, you can't walk in it. That is the best that could ever happen to the birds. We are not complaining about it. Most other people would, because of the fire danger. I have an area fenced of around a little water hole, empty at the moment, we are not going in there , to give it a chance to recover. There you go, that's us.
M-L
Nice,nice,nice Araminta. You certainly have a good variety of nice birds down there.
Beautiful M-L ..... I get them occasionally but havent enough cover for them to hang around on my side of the bush fence
Sunshine Coast Queensland
Thanks guys. I just witnessed a Grey Fantail attacking a White-browed Scrubwren, (same spot I took these photos), the Fantail repeatedly dived down and pinned the little bird to the ground. Any idea, what the little bird could have done to deserve that?
M-L
Karen,
Noisy miners definitely are territorial and aggressive and will chase out small birds, and there have been many scientific papers showing this.
There are a number of things you can do to help provide habitat for small birds and the "Creating Places" section of this site has a lot of great info about this. Whether small birds actually return to your garden may well depend on how close you are to the parts of your local area where small birds are still found.
As noisy miners are mostly birds of open woodland, one of the best things you can do is to provide areas of thick bushy cover as protection and habitat for small birds. Other general things can help like providing water sources and plants that provide/host food such as insects, nectar and seeds.
I am starting to try and provide some of this with my garden, but it's a slow process, and I'm not sure if it will get small birds back, as they are not really in the nearby neighbourhood. Either way, I'll have a garden that I enjoy and provides better general bird habitat.
Cheers
Tim
Brisbane
M-L, can't help you as to why the little bird was attacked, but could be a territorial thing involving either food or nesting sites. Or maybe the Fantail was in a bad mood. I once saw a poor female butcher bird (grey) go demented after crows took her only baby. Can't tell me birds don't grieve.
Tim, it would be a slow process to build up the lower level plants here. I am surprised I don't have more small birds though. I don't think it is my back yard, its the whole area. No one plants smaller plants here, just large trees for shade. Understandable, as it can be a hell hole in summer. I used to see tiny finches, wagtails, silvereyes, wrens, etc. All gone now. I kept a mound of dirt, grass clippings, and sticks down the back as the blue tongue lizards breed in it. I get into trouble all the time as the house is rented and the landlords don't like the mound. It's still there though. They won't offer to move it, and I am not going to. So as long as its there, the lizards win.
Karen
Brisbane southside.
I would think that it was a territorial thing ML but I am not really sure.
Apologies for the photos looking too big. I am trying to work out how to set a max. size to stop that happening.
Holly have you done somethning different to the replies etc? It all looks different today?
Sunshine Coast Queensland
I installed an advanced module that allows us to select a different theme for the forum and it also gives you the option to see unread or new posts etc.