Back to normality

I had been worried about the aberrant, non-fruit pinching behaviour of the seasonal fruit-pinching birds like the King Parrots and the Bower Birds.

They had allowed me cherries, mulberries, figs and peaches — as they never had before.

But then last week normality returned, as the King Parrots squawked  and gorged in the tall and heavily-laden Nashi tree, knocking many fruits and quite a few leaves and twigs to the ground, nibbling bits out of many other Nashis in the tight bunches. I had judged them not advanced enough to pick and let ripen indoors, but clearly I was wrong.

Look at the expression on this one’s face, caught with a beakfull of Nashi flesh, on the alert in case I was going to shoo them off, or approach too close.  What a gorgeously coloured bird!

I’m sort of glad they are behaving normally again; but I’d better pick what’s left of those Nashis…