Here in the Land Down Under we are blessed with many native birds and regular back yard visitors are often from the parrot family.

Generally, feeding of our native birds is frowned upon as it encourages them to neglect their normal eating habits in favour of bread scraps and items of that nature.

However during times of drought, bushfires and floods which are a regular part of our natural weather cycle, it’s not unusual for families to feed the native birds that come foraging in  back yards.

Here at Casa Creakingbones we fortunately are out of the fire zones but the severe drought has compelled our local Council to  introduce water restrictions.

Again, we are fortunate that years ago when we sank a bore we discovered that we can draw up to 3,000 gallons of water an hour from the two acquifiers which pass about 30 meters or 100 feet below the surface of our block.

Of course we don’t squander this great resource and limit its use to watering our native trees and grassed areas.

Our flourishing green native trees attract many species of native birds with Sulphur Crested Cockatoos and Carellas often in quite large mobs. Their calls are a  pleasure to listen to and their antics around the place are quite hillarious.

There is only one down side to the pleasure they give and the culprits, in the main, are the Suplhur Crested Cockatoos. You see they really enjoy cleaning and scraping their large and powerful beaks on the timbers that are exposed on the exterior of Casa Creakingbones.

Not structually damaging, just untidy and expensive to continually replace.

Fortunately all of our windows are framed in aluminium making them immune from attack.

However, the seeds and grasses favoured by the parrots are few and far between and have been so for quite some time and many of we town dwellers have taken to feeding real seed to the visitors. That way we are not harming them as does providing scraps of bread and stale biscuits etc.

Our large Australian parrots have a real liking for sunflower seed, either the grey or the black variety and fortunately supermarkets and pet food suppliers usually have the seeds in stock. However, feeding with loose seeds encourages unwanted visitors like Pigeons, Starlings, Indian Minors and otherspests to join in uninvited.

Our supermarkets stock the ideal answer to the loose seed issue. They have a great product called, wait for it, ‘Bird Munchies – Sunflower Seed Block.’

It’s just a matter of tearing off the wrapper and hanging the block in a handy tree.

Here are a few images of this morning’s breakfast session on a Sunflower Seed block:

 

As the weather improves and the natural environment again provides the  feed that these birds thrive upon, avian breakfast at Casa Creakingbones will gradually be off the menu and all of our feathered friends will depart, only to return when next the weather conditions again turn crook.

Hoo roo for now.