The Wilderness 



Other birds that visit us occasionally are parrots. I have noticed 

 five kinds Rosellas, Mountain Lowrie, Blue Mountain parrots, and 

 two little green lorikeets. They have always come when the eucalypts 

 are in flower, and I love to see their gay bodies flashing against the 

 creamy blossoms as they feed noisily on the honey. If only people 

 would realize how much life and colour they bring to their gardens by 

 retaining food-giving trees, I am sure they would not be so ruthless 

 about cutting down trees to make way for roses and dahlias. No bed 

 of flowers could be so soul-satisfying as the sight of a flock of parrakeets 

 feeding in the honey-laden blossorrvs of a flower-covered bloodwood. 



Just as gay as the parrots, though very, very much smaller, is 

 the red-headed honey-eater, or bloodbird, as he is more familiarly 

 known. He is also a honey lover, and visits us when the trees are in 

 blossom. His bright red-and-black coat makes a vivid spot of colour, 

 and his pretty little song adds to the general harmony. 



The profusion of mistletoe in the wilderness brings us the mistletoe- 

 bird. Few people really know this tiny steel-blue crimson-breasted 

 fellow, or his plain grey little wife. Yet his single whistle, like that of 

 a small boy who has just learned to whistle through his teeth, is one 

 of the commonest sounds in the bush, and the mated birds call con- 

 tinuously when feeding in different clumps, as if they feared to lose 

 touch with one another. One of the great charms of a wattle, which 

 till lately stood beside my verandah, was that its leafy tops were be- 

 loved by the mistletoe-bird. When he had taken his fill of the luscious 

 and viscid berries which dropped from the redgum by the gate, he 

 would retire to the wattle, hide himself amongst the grey-green foliage, 

 and pour out an ecstasy of song in the tiniest of voices. Many birds, 



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