Fascinating Bird Lives

 

For the last few days, this pair of Wood duck have flown into the pond and after swimming around and finding stuff to eat among the water lilies climb out and start preening themselves. The female seems to like sitting on the little girl statue while the male prefers wider slate slabs to stand on and straighten his feathers out.

I have no idea if they bred this season as I have not seen any ducklings at all. The pair come in quite regularly, are quite tame now and don't mind me sitting on the verandah with them while I have my evening drink.

The interesting fact about the Bronze Wing Pigeon is, they always land well away from the pond and then walk in for quite a distance to have their drink.

Perhaps it is a survival tactic as there could be predators on the edge of the water perhaps? They are very shy and do not like to stay if I am out on the verandah and they spot me.

This morning while I was boiling the kettle to make my early morning pot of tea and watching the sun brightening the day out of my kitchen window, I was fascinated to see  a male Crested Pigeon doing circles around a female pigeon which sat at the ready to receive him....but he went round and around and round her again , when another female came over and was also ready to receive him...finally he made the move and hopped on...totally ignoring the other female which walked away in the opposite direction...such goings on so early in the morning....

Also this morning, there were three little Willy Wagtail chicks squeaking away for food...
This is the third brood the parents have hatched in the Holm oak this Spring and this lot have just fledged this morning...there must be plenty of insects for them to be breeding so often. There have only been three chicks each time, they used to have four in a batch a year or so ago.

Talking about insects.... the holes in my Silverbeet are unbelievable and even my Geraniums are being chewed to bits and I cannot see what insect is doing that...even the Tomato dust isn't deterring them....