30 
EANHS Bullcnn 30( 1 1 
notice of them as they try to live on 
my verandah and sometimes in my 
lounge, almost members of the fam- 
ily. 
I have now come to the conclusion 
that they are absolutely mad (which 
fits in well with the rest of my family 
members) as well as fascinating, in 
their frantic, dashing behaviour 
When we first moved in they in- 
vaded the lounge, maybe because the 
flat had been empty for a year or so 
and they saw it was a whole new 
stomping ground. They spent hours 
and hours bringing their nesting mate- 
rials onto the curtain rail where it 
would drift gently down behind the 
TV This never seemed to fa/e them 
and at the end of each day there would 
be an empty curtain rail and a pile of 
grass on the floor. They have now be- 
come a little disillusioned with that and 
build with varying degrees of success 
in my husband's Gloriosa and Petria 
(neither of which ever flowers; well 
we do sometimes have the odd blue 
straggle on the Petria). 
Nests differ through the whole 
range of building techniques, from sta- 
ble and moderately stable down to the 
very flimsy, and it never seems clear 
which birds actually own the nest 
They never manage more than one nest 
despite the large number of birds. 
There are degrees of activity dur- 
ing the day when small flocks of fe- 
males and juveniles seem to chase lone 
males round the garden, often crowd- 
ing him off his chosen perching place, 
but the really frantic aciiviiy always 
occurs around dusk when the whole 
flock goes absolutely mad. dashing 
around the verandah, climbing into the 
nest (it there is one or onto the bare 
trellis tf there is not), often one bird 
piled upon another Much fighting and 
flighting goes on. so much sometimes 
that the nest tails off iis precarious 
perch; fortunately, so l3r. without loss 
of life 
Some evenings when I am sitting 
watching the fading golden light, they 
will all fly in and settle in the criss- 
cross holes of the verandah rail, arriv- 
ing with a great rush of wings. One 
bird per hole, males, females and ju- 
veniles A couple of weeks ago they 
all flew into one of the armchairs, 
perching on the cushions to watch me 
expectantly Then up and off in their 
desperate attempt to find a pad for the 
night 
It seems that they spend all day- 
light hours living backwards and for- 
wards bciween the various trees feed- 
ing and whatnot and only look for 
roosting places in a big panic once the 
light starts to fade The most amazing 
thing is that the male bird that ends up 
in the nest often spends most of the 
evening tinting around the verandah 
or climbing up the w ind-chimes. 
There are nests on the verandah 
above mine and I think that sometimes 
they gel confused as to which floor fhey 
arc on (bit like me in multi-story car 
parks) Quite frankly these little birds 
are a source of constant amusement to 
both me and my husband and all our 
visitors, and while they are often over- 
looked by others and do nm rank as a 
special bird to see. in my house, they 
are very much noticed. 
