A tale to start November. Well, today was my daylily morning tea with lots of eaties where I invite people to see the garden in flower. But, the major part of achieving it can only be done by outwitting one bird.

The Giant Brown Kingfisher.


As soon as he saw the food going out he arrived on cue. I don't fed predatory birds, especially the nest predators. If you do, you end up with a lot of meat-eating birds and nothing else. This bird is fed by a lady two houses down. I love him but not when you are having a do with food. He will fly straight into the plates and hook anything edible and sit there and eat it. Another of his favorite tricks is to take the food off your fork in a fly by.

You will know the bird as the Laughing Kookaburra. And it is a stunning bird.

So what we did was put out a dish of savory mince. He flew straight into it and ate his full over eight minutes and finally flew up into a gum tree to be harassed by the local honeyeaters. I hosed the mince off the landing and we began to make merry. And the kookaburra laughed too.



We came from here The thread "Bird Photos, October 2016" in Gardening for Butterflies, Birds and Bees forum

Glen, thanks so much for starting the new thread for November birds! Lovely bird and lovely humans, it looks like you all had a good time!

I love that beautiful Kookaburra but oh my, how startling to be dining outside and have a bird swoop in to steal your food! It sounds like the Kookaburra has no fear of humans and by the looks of that bill/beak ... oh my!

That bird photo is not the Kookaburra, correct? Is the kookaburra in any of your photos, Glen?

Looks like you and your guests had a marvelous time!

I might have been half asleep when I posted earlier but Glen's photo sure looks like the Laughing Kookaburra: https://www.google.com/search?... rather than the Giant Brown Kingfisher which also has a dangerous looking bill/beak: https://www.google.com/search?...

Great tale, Glen! In seaside towns we have seagulls that will swipe your food in a fly-by - they really like fish and chips, and also ice cream cones...

Confusing, since Glen uses both names in his post!

cliftoncat said:Confusing, since Glen uses both names in his post!

Yes, he has the name Giant Brown Kingfisher above the photo but it sure looks like the Kookaburra to me. Looking at the time he posted, it was early a.m. ... maybe he hadn't had his morning coffee or tea yet. I was like a zombie at 5:15 this morning until I got the first cup of coffee in me.

Yup, and he also says "You will know the bird as the Laughing Kookaburra. And it is a stunning bird."

Perhaps they are two names for the same bird??

I know what you mean about morning coffee - although I am rarely up at that unholy hour! lol

LOL, I'm a morning person and usually up between 6:00 - 6:30. My husband commutes to work 2 days a week so he's up at 5:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays and this morning one of the dogs woke me up at 4:30 so I just got up and stayed up.

Oh, my Lin! That makes me tired just to think about. I'm a night owl and make it a policy not to get up until it is light outside. Anything before that is collectively known in our house as "oh dark thirty" and every effort to go back to sleep is made if I wake up then.

Lovely story and pictures, Glen. Looks like a delightful gathering you had, kookaburra included. Well played on the bird diversion.

Actually, I was using the caps and real description as a device to give a feeling of imposing presence, something that had to be taken notice of.

Attention: photo contest is open! There is a wildlife category which is the closest thing to birds we've got. Check out all the categories here: http://garden.org/apps/photoco...

Glen, thanks for the new thread and the photos of your tea, looks like a lovely gathering, and the tale of the Kookaburra, what a little thief he is.

Birds have been scarce around my yard the past week or so and I'm not sure why. Even with berries, acorns etc. in abundance, I usually have visitors at the feeders. Four seed feeders and three suet feeders were filled day before yesterday and they were all still full this morning! Usually the Raccoons raid the feeders at night and clean everything out so I'm not sure what's going on; it's really odd. I've checked the seed as well as the suet cakes and I don't find mildew, mold, ants or anything unusual. I finally spotted a Cardinal at a feeder this morning and the little Warblers are hanging out at the tops of the oak trees.


Something has been chewing off branches of my Ric Rac Orchid Cactus lately and this morning I found two more branches on the ground along with two pots of Holiday Cactus beneath the oak tree dumped over and the plants were out of the pots a few feet away. The squirrels were up and down that particular oak tree so I'm blaming them. Those tree rats are everywhere and it's fun watching their antics but I don't like them eating my plants. Years ago I had problems with them eating and stealing orchids that I had hanging in a backyard tree.

Yes, the squirrels are terrible little mischief makers, aren't they? I must admit I shoot at them a few times every week with my wimpy little pellet gun just to keep them on their toes. I don't have much problem with them messing up my potted plants any more, unless the plants are out on the potting bench in the back driveway. They know I can't see them out there.

I've noticed not too many little birds around lately too, Lin. I'm thinking it's because there are more hawks around - cold weather to the north has them coming through here en masse, maybe? I filled my bird feeders up on Monday and the big feeder has only dropped an inch or so in 5 days. Looking out now, I'm seeing two Carolina Wrens, one grackle and one female cardinal. Usually when the birds are here, there's a whole crowd.

We have a large deck at the back of our property with our little shed that holds lawn equipment, etc. and I use that area for potting up plants too. I have a few plants sitting out there and a couple of old metal shelving units with miscellaneous plants and bird houses. Anyway, that area has been covered in about 6 inches of leaves and big branches from the hurricane; a project that just kept getting put off and put off. Today I decided I was going to tackle it and I managed to get it nice and neat. Anyway, the entire time I was out there, I kept hearing a bird sound that was new to me but I never could spot the bird. I forgot about it but when I was back out a few minutes ago, I heard it again so I followed the vocals and lo and behold ... my first sighting of a Summer Tanager! They apparently migrate through this part of Florida!

Summer Tanager, male


I wish I'd taken a photo of the deck before I began cleaning ... it was really a mess and looked like a wall to wall carpet of leaves. This is what it looks like now, all nice and tidy.

Beautiful bird, Lin - I wish we had birds that colourful! As for leaves, we are right in the middle of our annual leaf fall, so I have to do a circuit of the garden every day or two to remove leaves from the iris rhizomes to keep them safe from rot... Congrats on the really tidy deck!

We have lots of trees and more falling leaves are in my near future I'm sure. The hurricane stripped so many leaves off of the oak and maple trees, the canopies are really looking bare now but there are still lots of dead twigs and crispy leaves that will be on the ground before long. I was kinda hoping we'd get some brisk winds to blow them somewhere else so that I don't have to rake them.

Lin - That is interesting what you said about your lack of birds. I have been experiencing the same thing. In fact, I had actually thought perhaps they had found your place and liked it better than mine and move to your yard. I still see my hummers, but not a whole lot of other birds. My seed feeders have not been emptied like they typically are. Very odd, indeed!

Last weekend I did see 3 adult male painted buntings, 1 green painted bunting, and some warblers. But there is a serious lack of Bluejays and Grackles which I find almost unsettling. Where did they go? Mine are year-round resident birds. I hope no one is trapping or shooting them or ????

That is so cool that you not only saw, but photographed the Summer Tanager! What a stunning color!

When I see chewed up plants in my yard, it is often roof rats. Real rats, not squirrels. The squirrels rarely bother my plants. But I've had those destructive roof rats that nest in the trees and forage around my yard at night chewing up my plants and the screen on my porch. Watch for small droppings around your deck and window ledges.

http://www.roofrat.net/All_abo...

Becky, I did finally see a couple of Mourning Doves beneath a feeder this afternoon but they took flight when I startled them. I don't know what happened to all the Blue Jays and Cardinals. I haven't seen any Grackles in the six months we've been here in Sebastian but we used to get slews of them in Daytona. The past couple of weeks I've been hearing what I'm pretty sure is the chattering call of a hummingbird, always in the same area at the perimeter of my side yard. I keep thinking I should traipse through the weeds to see if I can possibly spot a nest in one of the trees but their nests are usually difficult to spot and with my eyes, it's doubtful I'd see one if it is there. I cleaned and refilled my nectar feeders today but was busy all day so I didn't think to watch for hummers but I have spotted them whizzing by a few times lately and also at the cape honeysuckle blooms. The pagoda flowers are fading now and there aren't many blooms left on the Tecoma either so hopefully they will start using the nectar feeders.

Re: whatever is eating my plants: Hopefully it's not real rats but that wouldn't surprise me. I just figured it was the squirrels because I keep finding them sitting in the basket of my cactus. I took a picture of a pile of Raccoon scat/poo on the deck today ... at least I think it's from a raccoon, it looks like a pile of purple berries.