Animals in your garden

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It's okay, wouldn't know, we don't get them, but there are now thousands of ring necked paraquets in London, a few pets escaped and found it suited them, and the flocks are spreading.

Everyone here is trying to grow as many indigenous plants as they can. Native birds here are probably more noteworthy than the native plants.
We have a blue-banded bee and lots of tiny bees as small as mosquitoes. Trying to identify everything is as interesting as being a gardener.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Trying to identify everything is as interesting as being a gardener.

Indeed, I am not terrific on birds, but when I was a boy Dad used to play a game of 'pick one each of as many wild flowers as you can.' Then he would take us through the flora identifying them. In later life I saw him play it with unsuspecting guests who would maybe find more than 30 flowers. Then he would say, "Okay, if you give me a penny for every one I know I'll give you half a crown for those I don't" (That was 30 pennies). He would give them the flora to check him, never saw him make a loss.

 

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The Galah (pron. gar-la) is iconic, wicked, delightful, comedic, adored and weird. It rests upside down on a tree branch or telephone wire. Groups of five or six fly past doing aerobatics as they fly. It squawks like a dinosaur in pain and yet will chatter away to itself. It is incredibly gregarious and mobs of a hundred will just gather on the chicken shed roof (and surrounding trees) for a bit of a chat

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The Sulphur Crested Cockatoo is the biggest of the parrots here. It's probably the noisiest as well. It's so heavy that when it jumps off this branch to take flight its body will drop 2' or 3' before its wings begin to elevate it.

 

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You're probably not interested in this one because you've got plenty of magpies yourselves. It did pose nicely.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

The Sulphur Crested Cockatoo is the biggest of the parrots here. It's probably the noisiest as well. It's so heavy that when it jumps off this branch to take flight its body will drop 2' or 3' before its wings begin to elevate it.
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How does it take off from the ground? Does it have to run?

 

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Does it land on the ground - yes but not often. I'll have to watch next time I see one land. I think its wings are powerful enough to elevate vertically from a standing start. Not sure.