Grey (white) goshawk

One of the special birds that visits our yard, mostly in the summer time, is the Grey goshawk. Grey goshawks come in both grey and white morphs on the mainland, but in Tasmania all grey goshawks are white. Here is a not very good photo of today's visitor sitting on the power line in front of our house. Apparently they don't like having their photo taken as this is not the first time that I've taken a bad photo of one that was quite close and sitting still. 

 Grey (white) goshawk

I would have had another snap at it but was distracted by the fairywrens right in front of me. With three days to go it was the first time I'd seen them in our garden this year. I also managed to take a bad photo of the fairy wrens.

Superb fairywren

There are a lot of young wattlebirds around our yard at the moment and this seems to be a young Yellow wattlebird feeding in the big grevillea in our front yard. If you zoom in you can see its tongue poking out as it has been getting nectar from the flowers.

Yellow wattlebird feeding in the grevillea

White-faced Heron

A very unexpected visitor yesterday. This White-faced Heron came and hunted round our front yard for an hour or so. This photo was taken through the sunroom window as it hunted in the grass.

Crescent Honeyeater

There are lots of seasonal visitors in Hobart. Some are here in the summer and some are here in the winter. The birds that turn up for the winter seem to mostly be altitudinal migrants - they live in the mountains during the summer but head down to lower altitudes during the cold, snowy winters. The birds that turn up here over the winter include some of the honeyeaters, fairy wrens and black currawongs.

Crescent Honeyeaters are one of the winter visitors. They are one of the most common birds at our house between March and October but almost completely absent over the summer. This is a photo of a male Crescent Honeyeater checking me out that I took a few weeks ago.

Black Cockies

One of my favourite birds is the Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo, especially the way they look like they're flying in slow motion. They are infrequent visitors here but a group of nine showed up today, including some young birds still being fed by the parents. They hung out in a tree next door for a while and I managed to snap some photos.

When I told Sofia there were cockies in the tree, she said we had to shoo them away, so I then had to explain that these were a different type of cockie and they are okay. Unlike the Sulphur-crested Cockatoos, they don't eat walnuts or almonds so they are very welcome.

Apples for the birds

It's been a pretty full on year with two little people running/crawling around the place and not sleeping nearly as much as we'd like them to. So we've ended up leaving quite a lot of fruit on the tree a few times due to a general lack of time and energy. The last of the apples is just getting over ripe now and the birds have been loving it - unfortunately there are no apples left now that aren't half munched. Obviously lorikeets love fruit...

Musk lorikeet

Rainbow lorikeet

We have also seen yellow wattlebirds, silvereyes and green rosellas getting into the apples but haven't managed a photo yet.

Sofia loves birds. One of her favourite bed time "stories" is Field Guide to the Birds of Australia by Simpson and Day and she knows the names of quite a few birds. Each night she remembers being marauded by emus at Zoodoo and the day the ibis tried to steal her lunch at Hyde Park in Sydney. So when we heard there was a Tawny Frogmouth seen only a few hundred metres away in one of its regular haunts yesterday, we had to wander round to the university and look for it. We'd looked a few times before on our afternoon walks without success. But today, there were two frogmouths sitting in the birch outside the Commerce Building as promised.

Tawny Frogmouths

I always love seeing these birds - even more so because they eat mice and these two birds probably hunt in our yard.

Shoo cockies!

We have had lots of cockies at our house over the summer with the biggest flock being almost 50 birds. They ate all of our almonds but despite often being caught in the walnut tree we still ended up with a bumper crop which more than filled a big recycling crate with good quality walnuts. The cockies are still around in smaller numbers and Sofia is determined that they go, even though they are now just munching on the grevillea in the front yard.

Last weekend she was up on a chair in the sunroom telling them as loud as she could to "Go away cockies".

"Shoo cockies!"

We even went outside on the verandah but they still didn't seem that bothered.

The fruit rolls on

We've been busy chasing after Sofia and Otto this summer so the garden hasn't received the attention it deserves. But it's still there and producing lots of lovely fruit.

One fruit that didn't really deliver last year was the grapes. After a good pruning over the winter and a warmer, drier summer, the grape vines next to the garage have been prolific this year. They are beautiful and sweet at the moment and there are certainly more that we can reasonably eat.
 

There were lots of pears last year and they are delivering again this year. We will probably pick them soon as the birds and possums are starting to munch on them. There will be lots to eat and we will also dry quite a few as they were a huge hit last year. Miranda is keen to try her pear bread recipe again too.

Despite being on its last legs, the peach tree is delivering a good size crop of beautiful looking fruit which should be ready in the next few weeks.

The apples are not too far away and are looking great. The really hot weather cost us some of the fruit through sunburn but there is still a bumper crop, especially on the bottom tree that Sofia loved so much last year.

We are also seeing a good crop of quinces after a pretty hard pruning over the winter and these should be ready later in April.

 And there are lots of walnuts on the tree so it's time to get Xenia out again.

...provided the cockies don't eat them all first

There are lots of cockies hanging around Sandy Bay and they frequently visit us. They have eaten all of our almonds and are now starting work on the walnuts. Some of them are so brazen that they just sit there and look at me when I try to shoo them away. Not sure what to do about them but hopefully they'll leave us some walnuts.

Green

It's a beautiful time of year in the garden. This is the same time as we first looked at the house last year and the agent certainly chose the time when the yard is at its best to advertise the house.

Everything is so lush and green.  The fruit is on the trees but its still a few weeks until the first fruit kicks off (and six months til it finishes). The red currants are starting to get a red tinge. We also found a berry today that was ripe and in a few weeks the berries will be in full swing.

It was a beautiful day today so we decided to have a picnic under the plum tree. The chickens kept trying to steal our food when we weren't looking and they also drank our water. It was a bit glary which is why we're all squinting a bit.

After we'd finished eating we went on an expedition and found some peas in the vegie patch which we then ate raw - they are so sweet. Needless to say, Sofia loves them.

There was a fairy wren around while we were having lunch. It's such a treat having these beautiful birds in our yard.