blue faced honeyeater – bushboys world

Getting the nature blues

Published on November 11, 2021 by bushboy29 Comments

Cee’s Mid-week Madness Challenge: November Colour Blue

This is the song that came into my head when composing this post. It is a golden oldie from the 50’s

The battle for the Grevillea

Published on August 12, 2021 by bushboy16 Comments

The Ragtag daily Prompt Thursday: Pandemonium

Around this time every year pandemonium breaks out in the front yard.

For most of July the Blue-faced Honeyeaters are the boss of the Grevilleas, chasing all the smaller Honeyeaters – Yellow-faced Honeyeaters, Lewins Honeyeaters and the Eastern Spinebills, away from the flowers especially the Honey Gem Grevillea.

Then sometime in August, the Noisy Friarbirds arrive to set up camp, nesting and finding food. This leads to such a cacophony among the Grevilleas that one year I just had to record the Pandemonium. You will see that at times the Noisy Friarbird is carrying on and the Blue-faced Honeyeater doesn’t seem to care.

I hadn’t been using my camera for videos very much back then, so I apologise for the not so good video.

A Bottlebrush for Jude

Published on August 2, 2021 by bushboy22 Comments

Life in Colour August: Red

I said to Jude I might find something and she suggested a Bottlebrush flower. Who am I to refuse a request.

Last of the blues

Published on July 28, 2021 by bushboy19 Comments

Life in Colour July: Blue

End of the month so better get something in as I have been a bit slack with this photo challenge, sorry Jude.

Maybe I will end with a bit of blue in nature

It’s in the eyes

Published on June 24, 2021 by bushboy29 Comments

Cee’s Midweek Madness Challenge – June alphabet letter I anywhere in the words or Eyes

Here is a selection of eyes to enjoy and a song to scroll to. All the names are in the tags if you are interested.

The colour is gone

Published on March 22, 2021 by bushboy33 Comments

The Bird Weekly Photo Challenge: Birds in Black and White

I thought I had already contributed to Lisa’s photo challenge and looking through my posts I can see that I have written quite a number of posts with a similar theme. I will have to dig into the archives for this one so sorry if you have seen some of these before

Here’s a short song that I discovered many many years ago. I hope you can enjoy it as much as I do.

The Pink Bloodwood Tree

Published on March 22, 2021 by bushboy27 Comments

I was intending to write about some of the trees on my place this year. Waiting for trees to flower, produce gum nuts and being there when they do, has been a failure on my part. I put some Pink Bloodwood nuts, which I photographed a while ago, in a post and a few people were interested about the nuts and the trees. Here is the gum nut photo I posted of the urn shaped nut which are10 – 20mm in length and 8 – 16mm wide.

Here is one of the many Pink Bloodwood trees, Corymbia intermedia, which grows on my property. This one is just down the hill from my house. Pink Bloodwood trees can reach 20–30 m (65–100 ft) in height with a 10–20 m (35–65 ft) spread. The scent from the blossoms is quite strong when the Bloodwood trees flower between December and March.

As you can see, Pink Bloodwood trees have a distinctive bark when compared to the other trees in the bush behind.

Why are the called Bloodwood trees did you say? When there is a change in weather or damage to the bark or growth of the tree, particularly when the tree is flowering, they exude sap which can look similar to blood.

This sap is a food source for Gliders, Squirrel Gliders, Yellow-bellied Gliders and the Gliders I know I have here, Sugar Gliders and Feather Tail Gliders. Gliders have been seen by researchers biting and chewing the bark to get the sap to run out and licking the sap. I am sure other possums, insects and animals would enjoy the sap as well.

The sap running down the tree can resemble globules of blood. The sap hardens in the sun and sticks to the bark. The First Nations people of Australia are said to have used the sap to treat wounds, burns and sores.

I have not seen the sap do this before. A series of strings clinging to the bark was a fascinating find.

The flowers have a distinct habit where the flowers are in bunches of seven on the end of the branchlet. The flowers are 20mm in diameter and mainly occur on the top and higher branches of the tree.

Often the bees can be heard buzzing away attracted by the flowers scent as are many of the Honeyeaters. The Blue-faced Honeyeaters came in numbers to feast on the flowers nectar.

Then, almost just like that, the flowers die leaving the fruits behind which have closed valves encasing the seeds which open after a short while to spread and drop to the forest floor.