With Pat O’Malley
Little, but really quite big, Wattlebirds.
Little Wattlebirds aren’t little: for honeyeaters they are quite large. But they do have little wattles (a small flap of bare skin behind the ear) after which they are named. This distinguishes them from the Red Wattlebirds which, needless to say, have a larger, red wattle.
Mostly honeyeaters eat nectar, but I rely on a Little Wattlebird to clean up the spiders around my windows – which provide a valuable dietary supplement.
A lot of people don’t like wattlebirds, as they are noisy bullies, especially noisy very early in the morning when decent honest folk like me are trying to sleep in. One of my old field guides describes their call as “horrible”: a series of squawks, bill clackings, yelps, shrieks and gasps. And they do drive other birds away, especially the small honeyeaters like the dapper little Eastern Spinebill.
To be fair though, all the honeyeaters are aggressive - even the spinebills, who, being about the smallest, can only pick on each other. Some say this aggressiveness is because the ‘honey’ or nectar is such a valuable food source. But the wattlebirds don’t just pick on other honeyeaters. They also chase wrens and even rosellas, who aren’t food or territorial competitors. I saw one wattlebird swoop a magpie at my birdbath, just out of habit, I suppose. It lived to regret it.
There’s a reason some of us, including myself, have so many Little Wattlebirds in our gardens. A lot of us plant those showy West Australian grevilleas and callistemons with the big blossoms, which are ideally suited to large honeyeaters. If you want to reduce the numbers of wattlebirds and invite the little birds back, prune the blossoms early for indoor decoration, and when the plant eventually dies, replace it with a locally indigenous plant. These tend to have smaller blossoms.
As usual with imbalances in nature, ‘the wattlebird menace’ results from we humans having good ideas. On the other hand, if you are like me and find these raffish louts entertaining, just sit back and enjoy them.
