Dams, ponds and water birds

Lilies on the dam

I believe that a garden without a pond is missing something.  Most of us love water, we enjoy just looking at it, but if it draws in wildlife to the garden then it becomes something special.  Perhaps the smallest pond I have had was in the regency townhouse in Exeter, and that little pond, although only a couple of feet in diametre still managed to house lilies and attract a strong frog population.  In Australia everything can be on a bigger scale and so here we have two dams, the 'Lap swamp' which is about 50m long and 30m wide at its base and the 'New Dam' that is very roughly a 30m triangle, both are around 3m-4m deep.

The Lap Swamp

Although there is a difference is scale, the same general rules apply if you want to have to have a healthy habitat. Ponds/dams work best if they have a blanced eco system and that includes water plants (for airation and flitering), marginal plants (for filtering and wildlife), water bugs (clean up & food for the food chain), fish (to reduce mosquitoes) and shallow areas (for marginals and entry/exit for amphibians).  If you managed to include all these aspects you should be rewarded with a water hole that attracts the wildlife.

The New Dam

I think that mistake a lot of people make when dealing with ponds is that they forget its an active part of the garden and needs tending as much as the flower beds.  Water weeds mustn't be allowed to take over or they can strangle the dam, too many lily leaves can create too much shadow, acidity/alkilinity levels can cause a build up of unsightly algae.  Of course the amount of tending veries on the size of the pond, but generally pond maintenance shouldn't be too time consuming.  Having said that I need to spend 2-3 days a year actually in the New Dam ripping out the Feather Weed before it takes over.  This involves me getting into my stinger suit and wading in, sometimes up to my shoulders, and ripping the weed about by the roots before tossing it up onto the banks.  It  makes great compost and gives me a good workout at the same time.

Wood Duck

Of course, get it right and you will be rewarded with all sorts of visitors.  Once we established the New Dam with weed, lilies and marginals I stocked it with native fish including Yellow Bellies, Silver Brim, and Australian Bass, Blue Crayfish (or Yabbies as they call them here) and Rainbows.  The latter are a minnow sized fish that breed quickly and feast on mosquito larvae, a must for any Australian water feature.

Rainbows come to a chunk of bread

Tadpoles in the shallows

The fish really add something to the dam, and attract the fish eating birds:

A Currawong watching the fish

A Darter drying its wings after a swim

The trick is to have fast breeding fish and to provide cover for them to hide in (lilies e.t.c) so that the fish eaters don't empty the dam.

Pied Cormorant on the Feather Weed

Azure Kingfisher

Whilst the fish eating fish can be very striking the insect eating lily trotters can also be fun to watch.  These birds are often less keen on flying and really appreciate some good thick marginals such as reeds, rushes or irises to hide in.

Irises are attractive marginals

Dusky Moorhen

Purple Swamphen

Straw-necked Ibis

Forest Kingfisher

And then there's the ducks. Our ducks spend feeding times on the New Dam and roosting time on the Lap Swamp.  Most of the year we have Australian Black Duck, Wood Duck and a single male Mallard for added colour, but around Christmas we get Plumed Whistling Duck joining the rafts and they are quite special.

Plumed Whistling Duck with Wood Duck in the background.

A Black Duck displays its scapulars.

And of course in springtime you get babies!

Very baby duck!

So there you have it, a whistle stop tour of the dams at Pardalote Holt.  They do take some work, but the pleasure they return is well worth any effort.

Late afternoon over the New Dam

Winter at the Holt

I'm never quite sure when a season starts and begins in Australia, but July and August I can safely say is mid-winter....(waiting to be corrected) in South-East Queensland.  That means generally dry weather with warm sunny days and cool evenings, resulting in a little dew, but otherwise it can be very dry.  From the gardening point of view it's a time to catch up with cutting back the grass, reducing the fuel load, and doing the maintenance work.  The exception is the vegetable garden as its now the time to grow those vegetables more common in the European climates including cabbages and sprouts.

Here's my patch, protected from the possums by chicken wire, bird netting, and the dogs! The 'lawn' is open to all and we are lucky enough to have Red-necked Wallabies as regulars on the dam wall.

Despite it being a period of slow growth for many of the natives, it's also the time when many of the flowering shrubs come into their true glory.  The Grevilleas are putting it out there for all its worth at this time of year and that means beautiful blooms and lots of small nectar eating birds.

Marmalade Grevillea

 Here's a Scarlet Honeyeater on the 'Marmalade' Grevillea and following is the same bird on the classic Robyn Gorden Grevillea.

Robyn Gorden

And just to finish the same bird (because I like Scarlet Honeyeaters) on the Fire Sprite Grevillea.

Fire Sprite

Sorry about the repeats, but I just think it's one gorgeous budgie!


The Grevilleas are not the only plants that I have introduced to attract the birds.  In some cases it's for the nectar as with these Kangaroo Paws and Pineapple Sage;

Kangaroo Paws

Pineapple Sage

..but its also plants that provide berries, including Hairy Pittasporum and Midyim Berry.

Hairy Pittasporum

It's not just the honeyeaters that build in numbers, but the ducks do to.  I'm unsure as the the migratory patterns of birds in the Southern Hemisphere, but at this time of year the duck numbers will increase from a dozen or so to near a hundred.  Of course that means I have to supply more bird seed and feeding time can be a bit of a quackle & squawk affair.

Ducks waiting for chow time

 Early morning and they are waiting for me to come out, and when the food is down then it's a bit of a rush...

Feeding time at the dam

The ducks will feed for an hour or so on the dam and then late morning they will move round to the lap swamp to let their food go down.

Ducks on the Lap Swamp

Whilst the duck numbers rise the parrots generally stay steady, although Sparky and the King Parrots disappear to mate and don't really make a comeback before September.

Galah & Rainbow Lorikeet

The Galahs and Rainbow Lorikeets are pretty much all year rounders, and are usually straight onto the tables as the food is put out.

Bronzewing

Whereas the pigeons, such as this Bronzewing, are more timid and will wait until the fuss has died down a little. Here's some more birds that I've managed to catch passing through...

Noisy Friarbird

Above is the Noisy Friar Bird, one of the largest of the Honeyeater family and not blessed with the good looks of his smaller cousins; however, they are comical creatures with their bald heads and honking voices that can often be found having a conversation with themselves using the car's wing mirrors.

Double-barred Finch

Laughing Kookaburra

The cuddly Kookaburra is a regular visitor, but below is a White-bellied Sea Eagle that I caught passing through.  Now he caused a commotion amongst the ducks I can tell you!

White-bellied Sea Eagle

 And this is the Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoo that has a very distinctive mournful cry and can be heard coming from miles away.

Yellow-Tailed Black Cockatoo

This is a great time of the year for morning walks in the bush, unfortunately its also tick season, so I have to ensure the dogs are protected with various tick defences and then inspected on return, however, the fun they get out of a good walk is worth it.

Bitsy in the morning dew

Tolkein leads Bitsy along the Jasmine Path

So, there's a snapshot of winter at the Holt.  Spring is on the way and I have all sorts of ideas ranging from expanding the Ginger Garden, to bigger veggie patches and even more varieties of Grevillea.  So, I'll try and write some more next month.
 

Winter at the Holt

June has passed and we're now in mid-winter, which like in the Northern Hemisphere means that plant growth slows, the weather is colder, and the ducks build in numbers. Currently we have over 80 ducks on the dams, mostly Australian Black Duck, but with a dozen or so Wood Duck and a lone male Mallard. At this time of the year most of my work around the garden is clearing and maintenance, so the chainsaw, mattock, bow saw, puning shears and brush cutter get a real work out.
  As you can imagine I am attired in the pinacle of garden couture when I head out for the latest project!

It's a time for clearing the fuel load (precaution against bush fires), cutting back the old grass, clearing the fallen branches and taking down the old and dying trees and shrubs.  Hard graft all in all, and it's a pity my son is swanning around in the military as I could do with a hand with some of the bigger stuff.

Despite all the clearing work it is a great time for birds as the Grevilleas are flowering still and a fair spread of species migrate in.

I grow a range of Grevilleas such as this favourite 'Ice Cream', and others including Honey Gem, Ivory Whips, Fire Sprite, Cherry Pop, Robyn Gordon, Peaches & Cream, and the best for the small birds, Marmalade.

Our Marmalade Grevillea is a large shrub, almost 3m high, and throughout the day is host to a real party of smaller birds including Scarlet, Yellow-faced, Brown and Lewins Honeaters, Eastern Spinebills, Double-barred Finch, Silver-Eyes, Yellow-Rumped Thornbills and the ever present Rainbow Lorikeets.  Here's an assortment:

Eastern Spinebill

Brown Honeyeater

Yellow-faced Honeyeater

Scarlet Honeyeater

Lewins Honeyeater

Rainbow Lorikeet

And of course the observant may have noticed that none of those birds were actually sitting in the Marmalade Grevillea, which is because they seem to hop around so much it's difficult to photograph them in it.


Although much of the native growth has slowed, there's no such issues in the vegetable garden as the cooler weather means I can grow European veggies.  So I recently unearthed the Sweet Potatoes, cropped the pumpkins, and the beds are now planted with cabbage and lettuce (continuing good crop rotation practoce by following root crops with green leafed crops.  Once these finish I'll re-fertilise the plots with horse manure and aged compost before starting the hungry crops of tomatoes, corgette and capsicum once the warmer weather arrives.

The first load from the Sweet Potato crop that eventually filled 2 full sinks!

and a couple of pumpkins to go with the roasts.