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The birds feel the heat

The temperature soared yesterday. Three crimson rosellas spent nearly all day in the tree outside our side-door, panting, with their wings held out a little from their bodies. Two small species of honey-eaters loitered, as well as our resident sparrows and fairy wrens.

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Two Crimson Rosellas keep an eye on me through the louvres

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New Holland honeyeater, looking like he wanted to come inside. He’s cooling himself by opening his beak wide.

I took these photos with my  FujiFilm FinePixA607 camera.

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Outside my kitchen window – a female, or a juvenile Crimson Rosella

In the early evening, the cockatoos turned up on the front fence, as did the magpies, but it was too hot for me to be bothering them. They also panted and held their wings out from their hot bodies. No birds have shown interest in my installed water ponds.

It doesn’t look like the temperature will go over 38 C today, a cool change is on the way as I speak. Expecting a top of only 25 C tomorrow. That will be a relief! I suppose I better go tackle the laundry – it might rain later. The thunderstorms yesterday skirted us, with only a few measly rain drops falling. Just enough to smell great on the hot garden.

Mr R just reported that the temperature has plunged to 34 C, so he’s opened the front curtains. A few puddles and some sopping grass reveal it has been raining!  It must have been patchy. It missed the rain gauge.

Thanks for reading. I hope you are having a good weekend.   🙂

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16 thoughts on “The birds feel the heat”

  1. Sue says:

    Poor little things. They may not realize the ponds are there? They are probably working on automatic at the moment, like us humans – find a cool spot and don’t move. Last couple of days has been unbearable. Air con not even working properly, started to cool down late last night and then it started working. Elec bill will be high next time, had ceiling fans and even a pedestal fan going to help the A/con. Some lovely rain in the early hours and a bit more forecast for later today. Lot of big black clouds were getting blown over us yesterday then it cleared up. Don’t know where the other rain clouds came from. Hope you get some more. Also hope they are wrong about the long summer. Usually when we get early heat summer peters out early. Fingers crossed

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    • We just have the fan.We could be lucky and miss a long dry spell – but there is one of those el nino things happening which is supposed to keep us warmer until autumn. We’ll see. Looking on the radar weather map, we have rain slipping down both sides of us today. The temp is veering from 34 – 37 and back again. We’ll get another sprinkle later. 🙂

      Sue, I think I set the ponds up in a too-hot position for this weather. Even though only in full sun for part of the day, it’s the worst time slot for heatwaves. Damn!

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  2. Sue says:

    Have you got an old beach umbrella that you can put up, or some shade cloth. How have you survived with a fan. mums place heated up in the afternoon. If I was at my place it would be like an oven. Alec’s “marvelous” idea of having a glass roof over the back room. You think he would have known better, seeing that his parents grew tomatoes in glass houses & had to white wash it for the summer. All he could think of was how good it would look to be able to see the stars.

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    • It never got higher than 34 in the lounge, and it’s unusual for it to get that warm. A glass roof?

      I’ll relocate the ponds to the place I favoured in the first place, and then it will be shaded during the afternoon. It’s on the other side of that tree on the cool side of the house, but will get lots of morning sun. I hope that’s enough sunlight for a water lily. 🙂

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  3. Sue says:

    Glass roof & 1 back wall with sliding doors all glass & facing north. He is going to remove it as he is renovating – wonder how long that will take, i might be 90 before it is finished.

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  6. Only a person who truly enjoys and carefully watches birds would share with us that birds pant and hold their wings away from their bodies when hot or that they hold their beaks open to cool off — just one of several reasons I like your blog.

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