A time to slow down ....

While we have been languishing in isolation, like the kids, I have also been doing a bit of home schooling.  Apart from fungi and microbes, this particular afternoon it was more biology 101.  
I saw a ‘bee’ hovering over our flowers and thought that it might have been a native bee because it didn’t look like a honey bee - I have been trying to attract the native bees with safe places to nest etc. However as it turns out this little creature was a Hoverfly. It was hovering! Don't be fooled bees hover too but there are differences between bees and flies that help you identify them - if you can get close enough!  I put a pic of both a honey bee and a hoverfly below to show you.

This is a Hoverfly. They have huge round eyes whereas the bees’ are more slit-like. And Hoverflies have short antennae but their 2 wings are longer than their bodies. 

You can’t see the bee’s eyes because he has his head buried in the flower so you’ll just have to trust me. But you can see that his wings (they have 4) are shorter than his body. Bees have very furry bodies but the Hoverflies are smoother except for a cute little ruff of hairs around their necks. 

Unlike bees, hoverflies don’t collect pollen to feed their young but they can be useful flower pollinators and help control things like aphids in the garden. Please come visit my garden - all of you!

Here you might be able to make out that we’ve taken over the table with irrigated pots of herbs and flowering plants - to attract the insects. Insects and fungi, and of course birds, they’re all essential in creating a healthy balance. I'm still working on it!

And well we might potter in our garden, the UN General Assembly declared 2020 as the International Year of Plant Health (IYPH). The dedicated year is a good opportunity to raise global awareness on how protecting plant health can help end hunger, reduce poverty, protect the environment, and boost economic development etc. Would that I had the skills - and we were home long enough in a stretch - to start a wee urban farm with a bee hive. One can dream!

In the meantime, I am happy to settle for our little plot where we can play and where birds come to feed and bathe. We have had an enormous number of species visit our sky-rise garden ranging from song thrush and small honeyeaters to pied currawongs, ravens, wattle birds and butcher birds. Our resident doves are the head honchoes and calmly keep all in order at the feed bowl and bath. It’s entertaining to watch.  They even tolerate sharing the bath with Indian mynas - I mean in the bath together!

This is a grey butcher bird who dropped in for a short visit. He may have been lost who knows but he had a wee rest at our place.

ANow this gave us a huge smile. Indian mynas tend to be a bit aggressive but they have been trained by our doves to behave if they want to visit and be accepted at our, their! place. Most mornings we put out a little seed on the side terrace, our ‘orchard’, and then sit up in bed and watch as the birds come to feed. The sparrows who perch like Christmas baubles in our plum trees, wait until the doves start feeding, then fly on down. Lately a myna has been accepted at the seed bowl - once the others have started to feed. It's all about pecking order. Quite fascinating! I know that many people are quite contemptuous of introduced species, forgetting all the while that most of us are not native to this land. A bit of tolerance eh!? (Poor pic sorry but I didn't want to disturb them by getting closer or dashing off to get a different camera)

A few days ago a pied currawong, one of my favs so huge, the gorgeous. came to visit to feast on some muesli bar crumbs I'd scattered on the terrace. In fact what he was picking up were hard bits the sparrows had dunked in the bee water dish in an attempt to soften them, clever things. I like to give the birds a bit of a challenge encouraging them to hunt for tidbits. They can make a mess but we don't care they give us pleasure and we are not in the running for 'Homes & Garden'. Anything we don't want disturbed, we protect.  The birds get it. 

Everything in the (aerial) garden is rosy - except we don’t have any roses!