Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
As is true of humans’ bathrooms, bathhouses and drinking venues, other species’ “watering holes” can be a “serene place of refuge” at one time of day, and “mayhem” at another.
On 08 February 2025, 3pm to 4 pm was “peak hour” at the birdbath in front of “our” cottage near Youngs Siding.
It looked sorely in need of an Air Traffic Control Tower!
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At least between the pictured species, “Two honeyeater species, sharing a birdbath” is a perfectly unremarkable, “normal” event.
On the left – sticking out his or her long, “brush-tipped” nectar-collecting tongue – is a New Holland honeyeater, Phylidonyris novaehollandiae.
On the right is a bird that is very clearly a species in its own right, but was not recognised as such until 2010.
It never really was a subspecies of the (eastern Australian) White-naped honeyeater, Melithreptus lunatus.
At last blessed with a single, “proper” common name – and its own “Latin” species name – Gilbert’s honeyeater, Melithreptus chloropsis, lives only in Western Australia’s southwest.
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At 3.45 pm on 08 February 2025 we watched a red-eared firetail finch (of whatever gender) and a (definitely-male) red-winged fairywren share the same feeder.
It was the first time in my life that I had seen members of both species within so very few millimetres of each other.
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For nearly a fortnight, we watched birds each morning and afternoon, as they came in to drink and/or bathe, to eat, to flaunt.
Most of the time, each particular drinking or bathing “event” involved just one species; when bathing, just one individual was usually in the bath at one time.
Occasionally, however….
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Both photos feature the same individual.
They were taken within two minutes of each other.
Q: are rosellas cockatoos?
A: no.
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The western rosella is the smallest of Australia’s six rosella species
It is also the most sexually dimorphic; it is not at all difficult to discern an adult western rosella’s gender – a marked contrast to other rosellas.
The male of the species is the more exuberantly-colourful, but the female’s more subtly-variegated plumage is at least as lovely.
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This series has twice featured an image of a male red-winged fairywren, in “flaunting” mode.
Females are more “drab”, but are very attractive – and perky – in their own right.
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Wikipedia description of the Porongurup Range’s geomorphology:
The Porongurup Range is 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) from east to west and consists of porphyritic granite[3] peaks levelled into domes. The range is the remnant of a sizeable reservoir of molten granite that bubbled up when the Antarctic continent struck Australia in the Stenian Period of the Mesoproterozoic Era, around 1200 million (1.2 billion) years ago.[9]
The sea levels of the late Cretaceous were around 100 metres higher than today[10]and during this time the Porongurup Range was an island surrounded by the sea.
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This post’s images show the appearance of the forest understory on the lower slopes of the Porongurups at the driest time of year, in an especially dry summer.
The local climate is “Mediterranean”, with cool wet winters, and warm dry summers.
Each photo’s “hero” dead leaf is wedged, approximately as high above the forest floor as would be the eyes of a tall human, standing there.
In such a forest (one dominated by tall eucalypts) it is perfectly normal to see the ground rendered largely invisible – “buried” beneath masses of leaf litter, bark, twigs & small branches.
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This post’s forest floor “natural abstract” was photographed a couple of minutes later than was the “5” Porongurup image.
Their locations were only a few footsteps distant from each other.
One of the world’s greater guitarists has (unwitttingly) provided a sublime musical accompaniment..
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