A garden for birds

I have been trying to photograph the Firetails that hang out just outside the kitchen window. Firetails are small, very fidgety birds, and needless to say, none of my pictures so far have been particularly fabulous. There are a couple of bird feeders outside the window, and they skitter into them, and skip about the wires, and scatter the seed into the violets below (there's a bit of alliteration for you!). Then they jump about in the undergrowth looking for the lost seeds.


They like to hang out in the fuchsia patch, the shrubbery gives them good protection and a safe roost. They don't actually nest here, I've never seen a nest anyway, but they must stay nearby somewhere since they are 'largely sedentary' (according to the link above).


Lorikeets have been visiting the bird feeding stations too. This photo is the best I could do. It's not such a bad shot of the feeding post, the hydrangeas and azaleas and the senescent wattle trees, but click on the photos and you'll see a larger version with brightly coloured blurs that represent the birds.


When I mentioned the bird feeders to a guy I worked with briefly a few years ago, an Uber-Greenie I didn't particularly like - unusual for me, since I like almost everybody - he smugly told me we shouldn't feed the birds but only provide water. To that I say, 'Sod You.' If birds come into our garden it seems only fair to me that we provide something for them to eat, since we've not left much natural habitat for them out beyond the fencelines.