I don’t understand what’s going on in my orchard — or not going on, actually. The bower birds and the king parrots have arrived, as usual, to eat the fruit on the trees that I haven’t got around to netting, which is all of them this year.
I knew the mulberries were coming ripe in stages and have been going over to stand and eat my breakfast’s first course on the hoof, so to speak. This year I don’t have time to pick them in bulk and turn them into jam or pies — I need a tribe of children to come and eat them.
But I don’t get why the birds haven’t eaten them yet; the ripe ones are as sweet as they come and all the rain has made them full and juicy.
Assuming the birds will take them all soon, I thought I’d photograph the bounty just to show it can happen.
That’s when I spotted the cherries. In 16 years I have never seen the fruit on my two cherry trees get past a few faint blushes of pink before they disappear. I may have eaten one — once. But the trees are tall and skinny — and laden; far too high to reach easily, but I am thinking of lopping them just to get those gorgeous globes.
Any bird would be mad to pass these up; what is going on?
Well Darian, hermits do miss out on a lot, but I Googled it after I got your comment and I do see what you mean; although they seem unrelated and as you say, not unique. Thanks for alerting me!
You can’t tell me that you missed all the news reports…mass bird and fish deaths, mostly clustered in the U.S. and Europe I think…started with about 5000 red-winged Blackbirds dying on Jan 1. It was all over the media. Here’s just one musing – Google the news articles for more accuracy.
http://kithraskrystalkave.blogspot.com/2011/01/bird-and-fish-deaths-still-unexplained.html
Apparently it happens all the time, just getting some attention (some would describe as “beat up”) in the press at the moment…
What’s this about the birds??
They’re not dropping here– but still leaving me fruit –figs, peaches now. Interesting that it’s happening down south too.
Likewise I have a bumper crop of tomatoes. What is up with that? Usually the Bowerbirds get them before they’re even ripe, and I never get a look in. This year they’re hanging off the plants in big clusters like grapes and remain intact. Perhaps it’s all those birds dropping out of the sky, meaning we’ll have more crops to enjoy…personally I’d rather have the birds.