Exposed garden environments & bird behaviour

In Tenterfield there are various types of flora environments including decidious trees that are exposed to open areas. In my neighbour Carol's garden there is such an exposed environment, and in Winter to early Spring, birds fly into this area and then keep perfectly still so they cannot be detected by anyone or anything.

In this video below I saw a female or juvenile Satin Bowerbird fly straight into this area, hopped around a bit on some lower branches and then stopped moving. The bird went silent and was completely motionless for quite a while after I ended this video. There is one tiny little bird eating the blossom from the flowering tree in the centre of area in which I scanned to locate the Satin Bowerbird in this video. I'm not even sure if I can see the Satin Bowerbird in this video. I've tried but can't locate it. It's in there somewhere.

This is not the first time a medium sized bird simply disappears from your sight when looking into these branches when they are exposed like this. Most of the birds that go in here do the exact same thing - they hide themselves and keep perfectly still.


With other area of Carol's garden it is a lot more open and a lot more exposed than this area. Birds fly around her garden, land in the open or near cover and are quite content to stay there for a while just foraging for food. Just something worth mentioning.

Satin Bowerbird Ptilonorhynchus violaceus

I don't know the gender of this bird. It is on my
front lawn.

This Satin Bowerbird has been a frequent visitor to my front garden, and my neighbour Carol's garden for the passed two months. In the last few days it has disappeared and has not been sighted since.

Satin Bowerbirds arrive in Tenterfield around the 16th of June each year and by the end of July they are gone. However this one stayed longer than normal.

More commonly sighted are the female and juvenile Satin Bowerbirds but only one adult black male seems to visit the south-west area of Tenterfield. Many like the one in the photo arrive as well but over the years the numbers that arrive in Tenterfield has been declining.

In July you can hear the adult male calling but it is elusive and next to impossible to take a photo of. It hides itself in thick bushes or high in the tree tops behind a branch so you cannot see it. The adult male knows you are there but never allows you to see it, or momentarily lapses on it's sense of judgement and you see a flash of black fly passed overhead.

When the adult male is here it eats berries from this bush below, which is in my neighbour, Carol's garden.


The bush is much bigger in real life.



The berries are finished and are now going to seed.

No Satin Bowerbirds breed in Tenterfield as I have never seen them in Summer which is when their breeding season is. One thing I do know about Satin Bowerbirds is they love apples and will gobble up apple pieces quickly before any other bird eats them.

Because this particular Satin Bowerbird (see photo at top) hung around for a while, it treated most of the local birds with respect. However, it recently encountered a pair of Rainbow Lorikeets which it took a great disliking to, and attacked both Lorikeets every moment it got when they were eating the seed in Carol's bird feeder. I have never seen the Satin Bowerbird actually eat seed from the bird feeder so I cannot explain why it would attack just two birds in the bird feeder and not any other birds like the Australian King Parrots or Eastern Rosellas that were also present in the tree at the time.

The following 4 photos was taken from one of the Rainbow Lorikeet videos taken on 14 August 2012. It shows the Satin Bowerbird deliberately attacking the Rainbow Lorikeet, jumping onto the tree branches in the middle of the tree then turning around and having a second attack at the bird. It also attacked the other Lorikeet higher up in the tree branches. It obviously did not like the Rainbow Lorikeets being there.

Shot 1

Shot 2

Shot 3



Shot 4


I guess I'll have to wait until next year before I can add something else about Satin Bowerbirds in Tenterfield. I doubt this one bird will be returning in a hurry.

Pied Currawong Strepera graculina

Pied Currawong from the video below.

Pied Currawongs used to live in Tenterfield in large numbers until the drought came. Now only a small handful of them live here. At first, all Pied Currawongs disappeared from the South-west area of Tenterfield and the township as a whole but a small family group returned and appears to have stayed in the south-west corner of town. This individual (see photo) is one of those birds that has stayed.

I really don't know all that much about Pied Currawongs except that they eat meat and seem to love eating nuts but they don't like apples. Often they will swallow food whole but have been observed breaking food up into smaller pieces like the Australian Magpies do.

Pied Currawongs are the type of birds that will follow other birds around, especially Australian Magpies, if they know these other birds will be fed by humans. Pied Currawongs appear to always be hungry.

Pied Currawongs live in small to large family groups and are always seen together or in smaller family groups. This Pied Currawong seems to be a lone member, perhaps a young single male, of the bigger family group here in Tenterfield.


The Pied Currawong is the very first bird you see in this video. I was mostly focusing on the Satin Bowerbird as it is rare to get videos of them here in Tenterfield for such a long period of time. I was blessed with recording the Pied Currawong's call at the same time as recording the Satin Bowerbird. The Satin Bowerbird in this video may possibly be a juvenile male as when I took photos of the bird it's eye colouring was blue in several shots. Other birds in this video are adult and juvenile Australian Magpies and you hear a Torresian Crow calling right at the very end of this video.

Why is it every time I go outside birds want food? 25 June 2012

I just came back inside from out the front when all these birds showed up. They were expecting to get food from me but I never gave them any. They all eventually left after a few minutes. The bird species that showed up are Australian Magpies, Pied Currawongs, a Satin Bowerbird and Torresian Crows. This is typical of what birds do whenever I go out the front of my place. I barely can garden in peace or just sit out the front without birds wanting food from me. It is quite annoying most of the time.