This is a new chapter in the Blackheath Wonga romance, but first a brief recap. Last year our resident male Wonga fell in love with his own reflections in the shiny hubcaps of our house painter’s vintage VW van. It meant a long, lonely season, as he
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About 30 metres below the Park Avenue gates in Memorial Park at Blackheath is a huge thicket of invasive weeds; blackberries, ivy, scarlet montbretia, red hot pokers etc. A lone Japanese maple struggles to survive in the centre. The irony is that satin bowerbirds, wattle birds and
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We ‘twitchers’ often see birds at dawn or late in the day, in silhouette against the sky. Here in the Blue Mountains of NSW they are balm to my soul. In a world that is increasingly full of stress and strife, chuckling kookaburras herald the new day
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Recently I told the story of our dear Mr Wonga, an Aussie native pigeon who fell in love with four delightful ‘ladies’. Unfortunately they were all reflected in the shiny hubcaps of our house painter Rebekah’s restored, VW van. It just became too terrible to watch, as
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by Editor Des. Hello dear peeps. I’m on my way to photograph the satin bowerbird in Memorial Park at Blackheath. BTW, see how that fence pipe has been vandalized? It wasn’t me (just saying). So anyway, I’m conducting an important experiment. Here is Mr bowerbrird’s hedge surrounded
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Driving into our Blue Mountains property after visiting Sydney recently we almost ran over a juvenile king parrot. I had to hop out of the car and shoo him off the driveway. He was too busy with an acorn he’d found to think about the dangers of
Read more →It’s almost the end of May, and the village of Blackheath in the Blue Mountains is looking its best. Tourists are enjoying the colourful foliage in Wentworth Street. Even the shaded little maple tree growing above the satin bowerbird’s lair is changing colour. What a fantastic location
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Autumn is a busy time for the birds in our Blackheath garden. So many seeds to snack on, so many fallen leaves to scrabble about in. And I swear there are those who just know they look good against a blaze of colour. The cheeky rascal below
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Honestly, blue wrens could take over my life if I didn’t keep strict control. I should really give them their full title; Superb Fairy Wrens (Maluras cyaneus). And yes, they are as delicate as fairies. Once I
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It has been a long courting season for the bowerbird in Blackheath’s Memorial Park. I began monitoring his ‘boudoir’ in mid August 2018. Without doubt it was one of the most beautiful, symmetrically arranged collections of blue treasures I had ever seen. WOOING IS A WEARYSOME BUSINESS
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