Day 13 - Wednesday 24th October 

We woke to another glorious day; zero breeze and superb blue skies.  We are getting to notice the routine of the local birds in our backyard.  First visitors are always the Eastern rosellas.  They are fairly quiet and reserved with their presence.  Yet they play quiet dominance games with each other.  No matter how many food sources are available, there is always one dominant bird that seems to need to flex his muscles and chase all of the other rosellas away from the food.  Dominance established, he allows the others to feed for a while before the dominance ritual resumes.

Around 6:50 - 7:00am the first Rainbow lorrikeets arrive in a small group.  It's almost like they have been partying late the night before and at last they are up and about.  They are boisterous and very loud indeed.  The Eastern rosellas instantly defer to them and within a few minutes, the back yard is alive with a full-on riot of noise and colour with seemingly "hundreds" of Rainbow lorrikeets.  They are so numerous it's hard to count them all.  There are at least 50, probably up to 100 individuals arriving in the morning now.  They are quite humourous to observe and "hop" around on the ground, while the Eastern rosellas have a stately and graceful walk.  The Rainbows seem as game as Ned Kelly and are a rowdy crowd to boot.  They too seem to try to play dominance games, but there are simply too many individuals and the "boss cocky" gets knocked off his perch pretty quickly by sheer weight of numbers.      

It seems that all the noise of the feeding Rainbow lorrikeets has been their undoing.  The Yellow tailed black cockatoos are appearing more frequently now that they have cottoned on to the presence of sunflower seeds.  Last night we had three at the feeders.  This morning there were five.  It is WONDERFUL to see these amazing cockatoos and in fact, the neighbours on two sides came out to watch them too.  I nearly made myself late for work watching them.  Sigh.  Retirement is definitely wasted on old bastards.  

Observations - Back yard in Charlestown    
Eastern rosellas x 8
Rainbow lorrikeets x 50+
Noisy miners x 6
Pied currawongs x 2
Yellow tailed black cockatoos x 5 ! 
Grey butcher bird x 1
Pee wee x 1

Observations - Work in Waratah
Indian mynas x 4+ (heard not seen)
European starlings x 2
Noisy miners x 4
Spotted turtle dove

Observations - Evening walk, Warnersbay cycleway Silver gulls x 50+
Noisy miners x 6
Masked plovers/lapwings x 3
Crested pigeons x 10
Spotted turtle doves x 8
Galahs x 10+
Pee wees x 2