These little bathing beauties come with a big reminder.
With summer weather coming our way it’s even more important than usual to have safe water available for birds and other wildlife.
Both of today’s images were taken at the same birdbath, beautifully hand made by my lovely friend (thank you Fiona). It’s about the size of a largish serving platter and is perfect for smaller birds that prefer to bathe and drink at ground level.
It’s interesting to see how different the images look when the fairywren was perched on the front edge of the birdbath and the Red-browed Finch perched on the furthest edge. I really like the way the water looks so silky in the fairywren shot. The bottom of the image is just about the bottom of the bath.
This birdbath is on the ground, nestled beside a tree with some low plants nearby. I have another shallow bath on a pedestal and a deep bath that’s also on a pedestal. I also have an old concrete horse-trough that is used mainly by Yellow-tailed Black-cockatoos.
In the deep baths I place rocks and branches to make sure that birds are able to safely get out of the water, or to use the branches as perches when drinking. It’s important to keep the birdbaths clean to avoid spreading disease but for every moment I spend cleaning and refilling the birdbaths I get many hours of delightful bathers to watch.
By having the birdbaths in a safe place, with leafy overhanging branches which provide shelter as they preen, many tiny birds feel comfortable visiting. Over the past couple of days I’ve watched bathing New Holland Honeyeaters, Yellow-faced Honeyeaters, Eastern Spinebills, White-naped Honeyeaters, Red Wattlebirds, Silvereyes, Brown Thornbills, Striated Thornbills, a family of White-browed Scrubwrens, Crimson Rosellas, Grey Butcherbirds, Australian Magpies, a Common Blackbird, Grey Fantails and Superb Fairywrens. I’m sure I’ve forgotten some. I didn’t see the pardalotes, oh I watched an Eastern Yellow Robin this afternoon, it was incredibly beautiful as it fluffed its feathers and bathed multiple times.
You don’t need a fancy birdbath on a pedestal, any shallow tray will work, or something deeper as long as you’re able to ensure that wet birds can safely get out and fly away. You might like to add pebbles or marbles to a shallow tray of water as that set up will be used by bees and other insects.
I get a lot of pleasure from watching visitors to my birdbaths and it’s great to know I’m helping them keep themselves hydrated, clean and free from parasites. As I write I’m imagining some of your birdbath stories!
Happy birding, Kim
NB I’ll rescue comments from spam, hopefully the issue will be fixed soon
~ Facebook page Kim Wormald – lirralirra
~ Facebook group Ethical Bird Photography
