Feast of the Figs

In summer my mediocre backyard bird list gets a boost - it's fig time!

Both the Red and Little Wattlebirds that usually come for the grevillea have another food source, and are happy to add a bit (or a lot) of fruit to their diet.

an obviously red-wattled bird

But there are also some much more colourful visitors...

Hello in there!

Rainbow Lorikeets only come down into my garden when there are figs to be had even though they're always around, flying over or high up in the neighbours' trees. They can be super stealthy when they want to be creeping around after figs, but most of the time don't mind having their photo taken.

this last one was a scruffy little character

The free feed also brings in some of the local riffraff: Common Mynas, Common Starlings and Common Blackbirds...

weird patchy blackbird - a young male coming into adult plumage?

...and what can you say about mynas?

Then there are some much smaller fig thieves - Silvereyes!

a small but super-cute addition to the backyard bird list!

I only first saw these in my yard in January last year but they were around pretty much daily during peak fig.  They also seemed to be feeding a young one, so have perhaps bred somewhere nearby? I hope so! More little bush birds please!

when your food is as big as you are

a bit of wing-fluttering and feeding of some sort going on in there

When there are figs there's action in the tree pretty much all day - and some great out-the-kitchen-window photo ops! Then at night the Grey-headed Flying Foxes stop by.  No photos of those guys though, and unfortunately not too many great views either as they are pretty flighty and don't like anyone disturbing their night-time snacks.

So fig time is a good time! But now that Autumn has rolled in it's all over for another year... The birds and bats will have to wait til next February for another fig-thieving opportunity!