The Tapas Bar Crew - Lorries, Miners & Bowerbirds

Cardinal Button

All the birds that visit the Tapas Bar have names and characters. And as the number has grown over the last 5 months, I thought it timely to do a who’s who post.

My Kooka Family is headed up by Boss & Bashful, then Bitey (he’s 2 yrs old), Brave Baby & Bully (last year’s bubs) and this year’s addition, Button.

But this post is about the others.

The Lorikeets:

Daphne coming to join her Beau.

Here is Cedrick & Daphne (Cedrick has the all red chest).  These guys are cantankerous and are certainly the boss of the table. Colourful by sight, colourful by nature.

While predominately pollen & nectar eaters, they don’t mind a bit of fruit. They’re not keen on the banana, monstera fruit, peach or the corn on offer.

But they LOVE grapes. Initially I was giving them whole grapes. This stopped for a couple of reasons. They have a habit of taking their food to the camera to eat, and bite the grape causing juice to squirt out of both ends, like a flattened jelly doughnut. They became pretty adept at aiming this at the camera.
The main reason is they are pigs. They were eating me out of house and home. They would land and eat all that was there, before other birds that also like grapes got a look in. So they now the grapes get sliced in 3.



Noticing that the Bowerbirds & Catbirds like to spring
Cedrick thought he'd give it a go.



Sharing the moment

Straight from the hood of a Bentley

Daphne, are you listening to me?

Mick, Mal & Nancy

The Noisy Miners:
Meet Mal, Mick & Nancy. These guys are real opportunists. While supposedly being nectar/fruit/insect eaters, they have a go at everything including meat. They particularly like rice.

These guys hassle. They hassle the others that visit, they hassle themselves. They just like to hassle.

But they are entertaining.



Mick taking a nip out of Mal.
Poor old Mal - everyone has a go at him.

 

Mick doing a fly by.

Turns out Noisy Miners have a right to passage for manhood.
This is Mal barking at the Bear. 



Some say this is good luck.
My camera didn't think so.
Who said birds don't have a sense of humour?

Mal on the way to another flogging.
Red the Wattlebird is twice his size & knows it.

"Mick, I'm telling you, it's right on the tip of my tongue.

My Satin Bowerbird family.

Both Angelina & Shirley.
Brad's girlfriends.

One of the regulars to the Tapas Bar, is a family of Satin Bowerbirds. These guys are real stunners. Brad (the male) has 2 girlfriends I think. Angelina & Shirley. A couple of months ago both the girls turned up with bubs. Well last week, Angelina turned up with Shiloh her daughter. Named because we won’t know her sex for another 6 years. If she’s a boy she changes to Black like her dad.

"Hi I'm Brad. Yeah, I know. I'm a knockout"

 

I don’t get to see too much of Brad, as he is either prancing in front of his “Bower” trying to pick up girls. And if he’s not courting he’s building. He takes meticulous care in decorating the front yard with items he thinks will catch a girls’ eye. He will collect objects and place them out the front of his bower. Most commonly they will be blue in colour. Plastic straws, bottle tops, marbles. With all that prancing & dancing & building, he has to take quick breaks to eat. These forays are usually close to home, because while he’s away, other boy bowerbirds can come in & trash his joint.

Angelina doing what she does.

 

 

Being fruit & berry eaters there’s no surprise they’re attracted to the Tapas Bar. They have a passion for grapes, but are also partial to mashed potato/pumpkin. They also like banana.

My 1st introduction to Angelina's Bub

Well, since the visit with mum last week, Shiloh now comes on her own. She is a timid little thing. Scared of everything. The others, especially the miners Mick & Mal, have been having some fun at her expense.

Meet Shiloh

Skittery. This is Shiloh flying off with more than a mouthful

Shiloh looking over her shoulder for those pesky miners.

It's tough being young.

Well I'm outa here.

As am I. Well that's it for now. This is only half of the crew.

See you on the next post.

Button the playful Kookaburra #2

For those of you that follow this blog, you will know the Tapas Bar is the outlet for my sense of humour. A bit Aussie, a little dry & probably a tad politically incorrect. So enjoy :)



The imagination of Button. A young Kookaburra.
I am the famous Conductor of Tapas Bar Orchestra.
I am called the “Flying Maestro” by my fans.
My Orchestra - Little Boy is playing the dog. His Sister strumming the Umbrella....
The Audience (Bird of Paradise) is giving me a standing ovation.
I am truly a Maestro.

Every 4 weeks or so, Nola the School Ma’am pop’s in to give the young ones a quick lesson.

After she left we asked Button if she learnt anything.

“Well” she said “I learnt that not only am I a Kookaburra, but I am a Kingfisher as well”.
“And what is a Kingfisher, Button?”
“Well it’s like a mini me. But I’m like a gazillion times bigger. He hangs on the lower branches sometimes."
"You must mean that Sacred Kingfisher"
"Yeah, that guy. He’s that yucky blue”
“Did you learn anything else?”
“Oh yes, yes I did. I learnt that they catch fish with their beak.....AND I can do this"

There's a fish.

Well, not really a fish.
But it could have been.



And if it was a fish, this is what I'd do with it.

Now, from this look I know exactly what she’s thinking. And that is, she’s up to no good.

To stop her from perching on the Tapas umbrella, I blocked her with the Blue Bar.

Umm, a challenge. I like a challenge. 



Now if I can just get some purchase





And he didn't think I could get up here. Ha

You may have noticed that flowers feature at the Tapas bar. I think they add colour & texture to my photos, and also give the birds something new to consider. They get whatever is in bloom in the garden. They are carefully placed to give the greatest photo effect.

Button, in the playful mood she's been in of late, has made it her mission to upset my well laid plans.

 

 

Food laid. Fresh cut garden flowers carefully positioned.
Camera set.
Exercise in futility completed.
I’m less than 1 foot away when Button comes in to trash the joint....

 



She laughs and says
"Nice flowers Brad, Pity someone trod on them"

Now I know this is going to do his head in
when I drop this over the side

Having trashed the Tapas Bar, Button flew up to the tree behind my place for a good old belly laugh.
Ever hear laughter & just started to laugh, well Kookaburra do the same. Within seconds I had every kookaburra up & down the reserve laughing at me.

Buoyed by this response, and with a twinkle in her eye, she spies from her lofty perch, something that’s been there for 3 days and it needs her immediate attention. I had placed a bunch of berries from a Tobacco Tree thinking one the birds that visit would like them. Turns out none did. That's them in the photo above (top left)



“H’mm, and what do we have here?”...



“I wonder if these berries taste any good.”



 “YUCK! That tastes like Broccoli. It's got to go”

We had some pretty big storms a few days ago, that left us without power for 4 days, so the birds have been getting some treats. This morning they got Chicken Omelette.



And what have we got here?



HOT, HOT, HOT.



Bwahahaha.....Fooled ya

 She really does enjoy her Chinese.

Well, that's this post done and dusted.

See you all on the next one.

Cheers

 

Button the playfull Kookaburra #1

Button has been in a bit of a playful mood of late.

She is having fun with everything.

The chores finished, I was relaxing on the veranda with a beer, enjoying the stillness of the late arvo when the family arrived on the railing. I hadn’t fed them for a few days which they let me know.

I had some strip meat still in the fridge, so they were good for a feed.

Now, we have a procedure for this. I show them the meat in my left hand, stick out my index finger on my right, and they jump on for a feed.

And for Boss, Bitey & Brave Baby, that’s exactly what they did.

Bitey hopping on, Brave Baby queued up & Button down the end



Bitey having been fed flies off to be replaced by Boss.
This is us inspecting his troops.

Then I got to Button……………

Now she knows what to do, but wants to play first.

I put it out - she bites it. Now, there is absolutely no malice here, She is just being playful.

 

 

C'mon Button, stop biting me and hop on.



You know I'll only play this game for so long.
If you don't hop on soon, well I guess you go without.



That got her

With us both still in a mood for games, we played worms in holes.
She has to dig for her dinner.

Just rewards

This is our special time
Games played, she's fed.
Ready for a gentle stroke before bed.

Her mischievousness carried onto the Tapas Bar, but I'll put up a separate post on that.