Wattle Birds

 

I received a phone call one day from a distraught mother, whose children had found a nest, complete with two baby birds, that had blown out of a tree in high winds.  The parent birds were nowhere to be found, and she had no idea which tree it came out of, so she couldn’t put it back.  So into my car I got, and drove out to see what could be done.  When I arrived there, I was met by her kids, and half the neighbourhood I think, and the baby birds had by this time been taken out of the nest and were each clutched by a child, and very carefully enclosed in their t-shirts.  Even though it was done very tenderly, I thought it was probably not the best thing for the baby birds, and I thought they were probably registering fairly high stress levels.  So I asked the kids did they still have the nest, and a couple of them ran off and came back with it, and I put the babies back in it.   They immediately snuggled up together, and I thought to myself, it will be a miracle if this pair survives, but promising the parents of the kids I would keep in touch, put the nest and babies in a box I had brought with me, and set off for home. 

I had no idea what sort of bird they were, they were just little and brown, but I had the sneaking suspicion they were honeyeaters of some description, and while having doubts they would survive, as soon as I got them in and settled, I consulted my bird book and found a few likely “suspects”.  I needed to have a bit of an idea so that I could feed them the correct food.  All the suspects were indeed honeyeaters, so that was a start, I then found out that I would need a special nectar mix, but in the meantime I could feed them farex (a baby rice cereal) with a little honey or glucose in it, mixed with a little insectivore mix, which looks exactly like squashed ants, but has vitamins and minerals in it.  Honeyeaters regularly eat bugs, they come with the nectar they get from flowers, and actively pursue bugs at times as well.  I suppose they need the protein.  So I prepared some of their tucker, and got them ready for their first feed.  They were little bundles of fluff, but their wing feathers were already growing, and they sat together on the edge of their nest.  I removed the nest from the box, and took them and the nest into the kitchen where it would be easier to clean up.  This food was pretty runny and I knew things could get messy.  I had found a spoon with a handle of the right shape that would be convenient for “poking” down their throats, and waved it over their heads, with the food sitting on the end of the handle.  They sprang into action and opened their mouths up wide, squawking!  They both tried to outdo each other, trying to stand up as tall as they could to attract my attention.  One was bigger than the other;  he was probably hatched out first, so had an advantage, but I tried to feed both equally, till they were both full up.  Then, very bloated, they settled down, snuggling up to each other, and slept.  I placed the nest back in the box, and left them to it, but every time I walked past the nest, they would leap up in hope, mouths agape, and squawking as though they were starved!  Being babies I knew they would need feeding often, but I thought every 5 minutes was just a bit much…..

 

The next morning I took them into the kitchen again for more feeding, turned around to get the food ready, and when I turned round again, one had flown to the top of the fridge, and the other was on the toaster.  Whoa I thought, this is not good!  So I went outside to find a small cage to put them in.  I had never raised honeyeaters before, and it was a fairly steep learning curve for me!  The cage had a little perch in it, and I lined it with paper, for easy cleaning, and put them in it, nest and all.  And fed them through the bars….It wasn’t long before they had abandoned the nest, and moved to the perch, so I then removed the nest (which I cleaned up and kept).  I found feeding them on the perch was an interesting experience, because being honeyeaters, they would hang upside down from the perch.  In the wild, honeyeaters assume all sorts of positions so they can get at the flowers, and that’s what these little fellows were doing too.  They were just as happy upside down as right way up, as long as the food kept coming.  However, it made it a bit of a hit and miss affair, because I never knew where their mouths would be at any one time.  Then they started flying round their little cage, and would hang from the top of it.  And they had only been with me a few days!  They were also growing more feathers, and I thought I could possibly identify them, as a bit more colour was showing on their bodies, and already their beaks were lengthening into honeyeater shape, and their heads were changing too; honeyeaters’ heads are often “elongated” to make it easier to duck their heads into flowers to suck the nectar.  Some even have no feathers at all on their heads, just bare skin.  I looked through the books I had and decided they were probably red wattlebirds.  As adults, they would have red “wattles”, pieces of red skin hanging below their ears, like earrings, and a yellow wash of colour across their tummies.  At this stage of course, they had no wattles, but they had that tell tale yellow on their tummies.  They had a long way to go till they got to be handsome adults though, they were still gawky and skinny, but very energetic and very hungry.

They continued flying round their cage, and growing and generally doing the right thing, so I decided I would try them outside.  I took the cage and hung it from a branch in the apple tree, and tied the cage door open.  Of course they just sat there, but after a few minutes they started to explore.  The next thing I knew they started to fly, followed by startled shrieks as they tried to work out how you land once you’ve got where you wanted to go!  It didn’t take them long though, and they were no longer crash landing, and they were flying from tree to tree.  Then I decided they should come back in, I didn’t want to risk them outside just yet at night times.  This was an interesting experience for me, because they thought it was a great game.  I would be just about to grab, and they would fly to a higher branch, and so it would go.  I eventually succeeded in capturing them, but I had to be very careful when I put the second one in the cage that I didn’t let the first one out again!

This behaviour went on for a few days, I would let them out each day, and take food down to them several times a day, as they flew around and honed their flying skills.  I had also managed to find some native wildflowers from neighbours gardens, and started taking them down to them as well, and pegging the flowers to the branches of the trees they were in, and also in the cage at night.  They accepted these offerings gratefully, and knew instinctively what to do with them.

It wasn’t long before they would fly up to me as soon as they realised I was coming out the door to feed them.  It was rather like being dive bombed by miniature vultures, and not only would they perch on my hands and arms, they would perch on the spoon, which made feeding just a tad difficult, or they would sit on my head and shoulders, hang off my clothing, and generally just treat me as a tree.  And of course, as they grew, they no longer wanted to come in at night, and when they got to the stage of flying high into a tree each night, still snuggling up to each other, I realised I would have to let them move onto the next stage of their development.  I noticed they would select a spot close to the edge of a branch, which actually would give them adequate warning of a cat attack, so again their survival instincts were coming to the fore. 

By this time I had a couple of “bottlebrushes”, a native Australian plant, blooming in the garden.  So each day, when they came to be fed, I would first take them to one of the bottlebrush bushes, so they could start their feed there, and then I would let them fill up on their nectar mix.  Soon I noticed they would visit the bushes of their own volition, and they also would fly over the fence to check out the neighbours gardens.  I could see them from the kitchen window hanging off a branch, head in a flower.  Then they met their first adult wattlebird.  He was incensed!  They were touching HIS flowers!  They hightailed it back into my yard and hid in the fruit trees till they felt safe again.  So they started visiting the garden belonging to the neighbours on the other side.  They also had bottlebrushes, and they had grevilleas and banksias.  They also had pansies and other nectar and pollen laden flowers and they had a ball!  Till the adult turned up again, with some reinforcements!  I couldn’t do a real lot, because this is what happens in the wild, and they had to learn to cope with things themselves.  They soon worked out that they would go to where the adults weren’t, and if things were really tough, they could just come home and I would feed them.  I had by this time started leaving food out for them in a place where the adult didn’t know, and they would just feed themselves, and fly off again.  Until of course the adult found the place, and used to help himself.  This time of course I stepped in, and shooed him away, and started feeding them in a different place.  Each time I moved the food he would find it, and stand over it, in an aggressive posture, shaking his “wattles” at them and looking every bit a tough guy.  Every few days I had to move their food, but they were growing and getting a bit braver, and a bit more cunning, and feeding well from the natural sources, so it was no longer such an issue.  My next door neighbours with the big garden were delighted to have them visit them.  They constantly told me of their adventures, and told of an incident when they were watering the garden one day, and how they inadvertently watered one of the babies.  He had been busily feeding himself from one of their petunias, and it gave him quite a start, and he flew off indignantly, hurling abuse at the humans for disturbing him!  However once he calmed down he was back searching for nectar again.

They started to catch bugs as well, and soon became proficient at catching them on the wing.  Their flying skills had become quite spectacular now, and they really seemed to enjoy themselves.  It wasn’t just a method of getting from flower A to flower B;  they seemed lost in the joy of flying.  About this time I realised they were in danger of becoming dependent on me as a source of food, so I gradually decreased the food I left out for them.  I would only leave food out if they actually came and asked.  And it was quite obvious when they “asked” because they would hang off the screen door till I took food out to them.  Of course when I took the food out, they would hang off me as well, I was still “their” tree.  They would even stick their tongues into my ears, or nostrils, and even nibble my earlobes!   And sometimes when I walked out the back yard with washing to peg on the line, they would hang off me then as well, and sit on the line while I worked. They were growing into quite handsome birds now, and starting to fly further afield.  One day my daughter was home and we decided to go for a walk.  One of the birds hitched a ride on my shoulder for a couple of blocks, then decided this was far enough, and flew home.  Both of them were there waiting for me when we got home, and of course they both wanted food.  As time went on, I heard reports of them even further afield.  I was never quite sure that it was definitely them, because I knew there were other young wattlebirds around, till the Rector of the Anglican Church told me one landed on his shoulder and nibbled his ear!  He was quite startled to say the least….

 

Then they started staying away all day.  Then for a couple of days.  Their visits were becoming more infrequent, and the neighbours were very concerned.  I assured them that this was normal, that they were growing up, and becoming independent.  There was plenty of food around for them, and they were doing “the rounds”, and would turn up a couple of times a week for a big feed, then go again.  The visits became weekly for a while, and then they disappeared altogether for a while.  Then one day, I saw some young wattlebirds in the bottlebrush next door, and I went outside.  Both of them flew over to me, and landed on me, but neither wanted to stay.  They had made the transition, and were now wild birds. 

I still see wattlebirds around.  I don’t know whether they’re “mine”, but it’s a great feeling to know I raised them successfully….