Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Winter birds in our garden

Once again a homing (racing) pigeon from one of several enthusiasts' lofts, landed on Angus' roof next door. 

A neighbor on the corner of our street exercises his birds above our house. Perhaps this bird belonged to him!
Black-throated Canary
Another (better) view of the Black-throated Canary 
Cape Robin-chat
Melianthus comosus 



Melianthus comosus is an attractive multi-stemmed shrub; all parts of the plant produce a strong [unpleasant] smell when bruised. It's common name is Giant Honey Flower and the Afrikaans name (necessary in South Africa) is Kruidjie-roer-my-nie (meaning: feathery-touch-me-not) The blue-green feathery leaves grow up to 75cm long, are attractively divided and have deeply toothed margins. Rusty-red flowers are carried high above the foliage and are followed by inflated balloon-like fruits. 

This shrub attracts a multitude of birds; Red-eyed bulbuls; Malachite Sunbirds; Black-throated canaries; White-browed Sparrow-weavers; and Orange-River White-eyes.
Orange-river White-eye; one of the many birds which enjoy the Melianthus comosus in my garden

I'm linking my post to Wild Bird Wednesday here







13 comments:

  1. wow, that cape robin-chat is gorgeous! like the white-eye, too!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Beautiful birds, lovely plants and great photos, Jo!! Hope your week is going well!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wonderful feathery, fruited tree. It is beautiful Can you eat the fruit? I like your bird shots. We have a lot of those pigeons where I live. I sometimes feature them on my blog. We don't have a lot of variety of birds in the city but if I were to go out to the bog I'd find a lot more there. It is a little too far for a spur of the moment jaunt and one needs to spend some good time there to make it worthwhile.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hello Jo, great shots of the pigeon, canary and the chat is a pretty bird. Enjoy your day!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I wish we had more birds in our garden. Our one daxi hates birds though. They taunt her all the time

    ReplyDelete
  6. all the birds are wonderful, and my favorite is the last one, the green one. the touch me not bush is really pretty to.

    ReplyDelete
  7. forgot to say, when i was a child we used to go to the park and buy a bag of peanuts from a man with a cart and feed hundreds of pigeons who were exactly like this one

    ReplyDelete
  8. The Cape Robin Chat is a cool looking bird.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Lovely birds to see in your garden.

    ReplyDelete
  10. LOVE that black-throated canary! The honey tree is so pretty, and so are the other birds.

    ReplyDelete
  11. You do have wuite a nuber of birds in your garen adn that shrub is certainly attracting them. How is the pup?

    ReplyDelete
  12. I love the Cape Robin-chat! It's so attractive.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for visiting my blog and taking the time to leave a comment. I appreciate your feedback. Jo