Purple Crowned Lorikeets and the Heatwave...

It was the hottest February day on record yesterday, and it was very, very hot indeed!43C!!
I kept a sprinkler going in various areas of the front garden as the birds were all desperate for water.
I became very excited about the little green birds we had fleeting glimpses of  earlier in the week and suddenly I  saw them in the Holm Oak which provides dense shade, when shifting the sprinkler to a new area.

 To start with I thought they were Double Eyed Fig parrots when I looked them up in the bird book. This would have been too rare for words as those little parrots are only in special areas of rainforest on the East coast of Australia. So having another look this morning I came to the conclusion they are Purple Crowned Lorikeets. This is much more likely as they inhabit most of Southern Australia. It is exciting all the same to have such interesting little visitors.

The poor little New Hollands and the Greenies , both honey eaters, were sitting with beaks open on the edge of the fish bowl which sits in front of the window here, busily trying to have a drink before the bigger Wattle birds would demand their go at the water.
Meanwhile the Magpies were darting in and out of the sprinkler along with the Murray Magpies.
The rest of the Magpie clan were hogging the bird bath and wouldn't let any other bird near.

The Murray magpies are annoying in that they screech and give their warning call the moment I came out to fill yet another bowl with water for them or to shift the sprinkler thereby upsetting all the other birds except the Lorikeets or the Willy Wagtail who take no notice of me at all.

 The Murray Magpies were also domineering the pond and the Wattle bird was having a tough time there trying to get a drink.
I did not find any dead birds this time, last time there was a dead wattle bird after the heat wave which I didn't bury, thinking the ants might leave a clean skeleton for me , but no, something has carted it off.

As you can see on the right, there are three lorikeets and I took that photo with a night time setting on the camera as the shade is quite dark in the Holm Oak.
This morning it is much cooler but we are being pounded by huge winds and I have had to shut doors to keep them from flying and banging shut. Also brought the washing in as I thought the rotary hoist might be lifted out of the ground....
How did the men on sailing ships in the 18th century cope ?...