'Feed the birds and they will come' - I read that somewhere. Once. And in winter I do feed the birds. I leave vessels of sugar water and carefully wedged over ripe windfall fruit in the v-pronged branches of otherwise bare fruit trees. And the native birds do come.
Last week, thanks to loads of super sweet pears, there was veritable bird-binge-fest going on in the orchard. I worried for hoards of avian waist lines. They gorged themselves. A roman feast with feathers in tact. So drunk on sugar were these birds I could stand a metre away with outstretched arms, camera on full zoom snapping away. At one point a Tui and a Bellbird sucked sweet nectar alongside one another. Then four Bellbirds in a pear tree, including teenage offspring, guzzling.
Tuis are trickier to photograph though they like to keep watch from above, they're more nervy, dip in, zip out.Will not pose. Hence there are none below.
Bellbirds are the parrot green ones, they're about the size of your hand from the tip of their curved beak to the end of their tail. If you want to hear them sing click here. Waxeyes are the ones with thick white kohl around their eyes, they're tiny, about twice the size of a hummingbird.
I'll gladly admit to being a crazy-native-bird-lady, I love them. Especially when they come to visit. I love them even more when I manage to get an in focus shot. Don't let our native birds starve this winter. Feed em!
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