^gj-' ] CuRRiE, The Birds of a Gippsland Garden. 85 



THE BIRDS OF A GIPPSLAND GARDEN. 



By (Miss) C. C. Currie, Lardner. 



{Read before the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, nth Aug., 19 19.) 



Nestled dose in the shelter of the tall timber and original 

 bush, this garden is crowded with Enghsh and native trees, 

 shrubs, and tree-ferns, which makes it a perfect shelter for 

 many kinds of birds. 



With a well-stocked larder beside it, a young Boobook Owl, 

 Ninox boobook, sits in the shadiest part until its parents return 

 in the evening. Of Honey-eaters we have not a few. The 

 Spinebills, Acanthorhynchus tennirostris, rarely leave the 

 garden. They are old favourites, and depend upon us to help 

 them in the continual feud with the Wattle-birds, who question 

 their right to the garden. 



The flowering eucalypts are doubtless responsible for so 

 : many Honey-eaters. The Wattle-birds, Acanthochcera carun- 

 culata, had their nest in a Western Australian E. calophylla, 

 over a gate, so they are not shy. The Tawny-crowned Honey- 

 eater, Glyciphila melanops, lives amongst some banksia trees 

 about a mile away, and visits us from time to time. The 

 Brush Wattle-bird, Anellobia chrysoptera, is a particularly noisy 

 visitor, mimicking a great many birds, and is known in many 

 parts as the " Mocking-bird." Another visitor, the White- 

 eared Honey-eater, Ptilotis leucoiis, is particularly quiet, though 

 not at all shy, and flits gracefully through the plum-tree at 

 the door, his taste for plums fully equalling his taste for 

 flowers. 



To-day I hear a Bell-Miner, Manorhina melanophrys. There 

 is a colony of these birds about three miles away, and occasion- 

 ally we hear one in the tall timber near the house, and hope 

 he will stay. A very great favourite is the White-shafted 

 Flycatcher, or Fantail, Rhipidura albiscapa. It often flies in 

 at the house door catching flies, regardless of our presence. 

 A pair have their nest in a tea shrub, Thea sinensis, in the 

 flower garden, where three young were reared in the tiny nest, 

 while the incomparable nest of the Black-and-White Fantail, 

 R. motacilloides, is in a gum-tree just outside the garden fence, 

 and in the same tree, a few feet above it, is a Mud-Lark's 

 (Grallina picata) nest. Near by there are several more Mud- 

 Larks' nests. The birds are great friends since one season we 

 shot a Magpie which had destroyed six nests, one after the other, 

 as the Mud-Larks built them, throwing the eggs out. The 

 Grallinas used to shriek each time, but we were always too 

 late to save the nest. 



Welcome Swallows, Chelidon neoxena, are here all the year 

 round. They nest in the barn, and it is interesting to note 



