Another Room with a view

So with gardening days limited to about one in four, enjoying the garden is very much an indoor activity. From the lounge room we have the view of a particularly beautiful tree, a pincushion hakea, that flowers every couple of years.

This tree is a magnet for our local honeyeaters. The sparrows and wattles love it too but then they love every tree in our garden.

The tree teases us with its flowers. On the years it does decide to flower, little white balls start to appear. One early flower, impatient to make its presence felt, usually appears late autumn and just sits there, basking in its own beauty. We know more are coming so we check it daily and start counting the flowers. When there are more flowers than we have fingers to count on, the tiny honeyeaters start to arrive.

This year the Eastern Spinebill was the first to arrive. They don't know we are watching them, so we have a bird's eye view, so to speak. This beautiful creature, a sleek copper brown and black bird, has a long thin curved bill that it sinks deep into the flower.

Next come the Yellow Throated Honeyeaters. This visit was particularly exciting because we hadn't been able to identify this bird up til now. Its wings are a shiny olive. I saved one out of the sun room one day and we have been trying to work out what it was ever since. It doesn't help when the male and female look quite different. The males sport a bright yellow throat but the female is content with her spectacular olive colour.

Now it is the turn of the New Holland Honeyeater. This is a frequent, familiar visitor to our garden. It is a riot of black and yellow stripes and is now spending most of its day enjoying the pincushion flowers. Even when I was taking the photos for this blog, it ignored me, purposely flitting from flower to flower.

Now we still have the gorgeous Fairy Wrens invading the deck, a lone Grey Shrike Thrush that sings to itself in the mirror and cheeky Blackbirds that steal the dog food, but they are a bit outclassed at the moment.

Gardening from the comfort of my armchair is good.

Oh and here's a picture of a cat in a box....