3 Apr 2016

on suburban wildlife



Whenever mum and I are having a moan about the garden (which this year, has been often) we invariably end up saying ‘if it’s not one thing, it’s another’.

So let’s start with the ants. Every summer the ants move inside — it’s as if my kitchen is in their path as they travel from the front garden to the back garden; they just make their way across the walls, from west to east.

This year, however, they detoured. Via my honey and vanilla jars.

I’d arrived home from Christmas at my parents’ place, and was unpacking fruit and veg. Oh, there’s an ant, I thought. There’s another. Wait, there’s a whole busy trail of them ... where are they going? I followed them around the sink and over the hot plates and past the oven and into the cupboard and — IN MY HONEY! And golden syrup and vanilla paste and macadamia chocolate goo! Welcome home. I spent the next half hour washing down all the surfaces and jars, and putting everything sweet and sticky into plastic ziploc bags, where they still live months later (thankfully none of the ants actually got into the honey or chocolate goo, which saved me throwing away everything. But still!).

Another time they marched in and made a bee-line (ant-line?) for some egg shells in my otherwise-empty compost bin. Or they trooped into a vase of silverbeet — heading for the water — but ignored the jug of drinking water I had on the opposite side of the sink. Go figure.

Since the heat of summer has abated, I’ve had only the odd ant or two walking around the kitchen, but I work around them, and try not to get too annoyed. Actually, I usually shoot these lone wanderers a withering look: ‘What are you still doing here, by yourself? Don’t you know, everyone else has moved on? Loser.’

But, if it’s not one thing, it’s another. I’ve had lots of little brown grasshoppers around (thankfully they’re staying outside and are not migrating thru the kitchen). I’m not sure what damage they do to a garden, but some of my plants had very small holes in the leaves, and I could spy no caterpillars in the area.

Then again, it may have been the sparrows. I blame them for my failure to grow any peas this year. I’ve never seen such large flocks; again, it’s the dry and they’re desperate for food, but I have come to despise these small birds because they have deprived me of homegrown sugar snaps!

Why don’t the sparrows eat the aphids? Because there’s plenty of those around. A couple of years ago, I decided to put down the pyrethrum and live in harmony with those little green suckers (literally), in the hope they’d attract insect-eating birds. The only things I defend chemically are my climbing roses, but by and large the aphids restrict themselves to the nasturtiums, aquilegias, and birch trees. I’ve seen wattlebirds picking along the birch branches, and while part of me loathes that there are aphids around, another part of me sees the silver lining.

This year I’ve attracted more little birds into the garden than ever before. I’m sure it’s the lower chemical use, the bird baths I maintain, and the extra lion’s plants I’m growing. New Holland honey eaters come noisily in for the sweetness of these orange flowers, swinging from one tall stalk to another (and often breaking them, too). They also enjoyed red nerines! I’ve had young eastern spinebills, with the longest, thinnest beak I’ve seen, slurping out the goodness from tubular flowers and chasing insects in the dense jasmine wines. They were enchanting to watch as they flitted about; once or twice they even did a good impression of a hovering hummingbird!

But the sweetest bird ever to grace my garden — only once; never before and never since — was a spotted pardalote. Look it up: a small, rounded little bird with the most amazing spots and markings (hence the name) I’ve ever seen. She was not at all shy about me standing so close to her and mimicking her call. I slowly extended my arm out to see if she’d come closer and land on my finger. She didn’t, but we stood there chatting and eyeing one another off for quite a few magical, happy moments.

It’s wondrous to attract that kind of wildlife into my suburban garden. Now the weather is cooling, I have some small grevillea plants to add to the garden, to supply more food for more of these feathered visitors. I’ll just put up with the ants and aphids and grasshoppers.

What sort of wildlife do you get in your kitchen and garden; good and bad?

And sorry there are no pictures of the wildlife, especially the pretty birds. My camera and skills aren't that good. And who wants to see a plague of ants? 

12 comments:

  1. Yes to ants, mice and midgets! Thankfully only a few mice inside but plenty of ants in the warmer months. They even manage to find their way into my pretty biscuits tins, forcing me to put my biscuits back into plastic containers. Good luck with the wildlife!

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    1. oooh, I haven't had mice for a few years - mice and rats I really do fear. they are on a different level altogether!
      can you put the plastic containers inside the pretty tins? then you have the best of both worlds. good luck you too jane!

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  2. I feel your pain! I can safely say that this has been the worst year for grasshoppers in my garden. They have munched on plants that I have never seen them eat before! I have a 'do nothing' approach, so I just observe the destruction :(

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    1. I think it must be a bad year for everyone, no matter where you live. we just have to ride it out and wait for mother nature to move on, don't we? hopefully the cooler weather soon will end your grasshopper plague, jem :-(

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  3. Wildlife is wonderful isn't it, although it's not always all welcome. Frogs and now frogspawn here, and I'm hoping something will use the nest box this year, although I think they would be in by now if they were going to use it. Always struggling with slugs as soon as the seedlings come up, the frogs are clearly not eating their way through them fast enough! The allotment has far more wildlife than the garden, it's quite open and by the countryside and everything is just constantly marauding through the place. It's impossible to grow sweetcorn there because the badgers wait until it's exactly ripe and then eat the lot. Rabbits help themselves to the shoots of lots of things as well and I've heard rumours of muntjac. And don't get me started on the pigeons... On the upside there are lots of butterflies and bees. Like you I mostly let things carry on and hope it all balances itself out. CJ xx

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    1. I don't have badgers, and I've never heard of muntjac - I'm about to google that one. your wildlife sounds much more exotic than ours, CJ :-)

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  4. Love the sound of the spotted pardalote! Off to google it now. Great post E.

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    1. thankyou lizzy - you will find the prettiest little bird! I still look out for her, but she was sadly a fleeting visitor.

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  5. I have tried everything to keep the ants out of our kitchen. If I keep wiping the counters down with vinegar or vinegar in which citrus peels have been soaking, it seems to deter them, but needs to be done every day. I just keep anything sweet in the fridge.

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    1. Vinegar - I shall remember that next summer AA, thank you. Mine are just about gone now out of the house - but they are EVERYWHERE in the garden. water any pot or bed and swarms come rushing to the surface with their eggs. I think I must be living on top of a giant ant nest. actually, I don't want to think about it too much!

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  6. Now that I'm living in an outer suburban area with bushland, I get bandicoots in my garden, they are absolutely adorable! Also kookaburras, I love their funny cackle! Wildlife can be so much fun. :)

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    1. now that sounds like lovely wildlife - kookas especially! I love their cackle too when I hear them at my parents' place.

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Word-verification is on, as the robot-spammers are loving my tuna past bake too much at the moment! I hope you understand - and I hope you'll still leave a comment at Dig In. I love hearing your thoughts, knowing someone is reading, and will always reply. Unless you're a robot-spammer.