The scarlet robin sitting on the fence gave me a nod of approval. At long last I had finally got around to bringing some order to a totally overgrown and dishevelled garden and my uprooting of weeds and spreading mulch had provided some rich pickings.
My wife had pointed out the robin, bowled over by its striking, fiery breast and contrasting black and white plumage on its back and tail. Surprisingly, it was the first we had ever seen in the garden although in spring I had often heard their beautiful twittering melody coming from the peppermint gums and wattles which frame the garden’s boundaries.
I had neglected the garden in recent years, probably deterred by the vast amount of work to be done, a process which is still ongoing. Fierce winds in recent years have taken a heavy toll on our ageing exotic wattles which form the garden’s centrepiece, the wattles separating two sloping lawns, the second lawn falling away to the Sandy Bay Rivulet.
The ovens and floribunda wattles produce an eye-catching display of flowers in spring. They flower at the same time and dress their dark green foliage with two shades of yellow. They’re not native to Tasmania – I try mainly to plant trees and shrubs that grow naturally in the state – but all the same their foliage and flowers blend perfectly with the golden flowers of the silver wattles which line the rivulet bank. The silver wattles grow too tall for the space between my lawns.
Meanwhile, all the garden activity brought with it some interesting birdlife, beyond the robin which happily flew to the ground not more than a metre from my feet when I pulled up weeds, feasting on the insects the roots revealed.
My usual visitor to the garden is a female raven and she had arrived for her usual piece of cheese, supplemented with some leftover mince from our dinner the night before
But at the same time I had attracted the attention of a flock of black currawongs and they were delighted to see me placing the mince, in a bowl, on the lawn. The bigger raven is capable of seeing off individual currawongs but on this occasion she kept her distance because there was an aggressive flock of five of them. So I laid a heavy log over the bowl, with the intention of feeding the raven a little later when the currawongs had moved on. The currawongs had other ideas, however. Working together, they managed to push the log aside and made short work of the mince.
Although I have a soft spot for ravens, and this female raven in particular because she appears to have lost her mate who also used to visit my garden, it was good to see the currawongs. I’ve observed and heard them flying overhead in the past, but it was the first time they had actually visited the garden. Another first for my garden checklist.