Flying rainbows

"The parrots shriek as if they were on fire, or strut
Like cheap tarts to attract the stroller with the nut".

Ted Hughes in The Jaguar, describing parrots in the zoo.

I am reminded of these words this winter when Lorikeets are visiting my garden in Bondi Beach, Australia.

As the lazy winter sun sets a sparkle on the honey in the flowers of the coastal Banksia and Grevillea, you can hear the screech of these gorgeous birds overhead.

We have three flowering plants/trees in our front garden - a red grevillea,

a banksia integrifolia

and a yellow grevillea.

A lone brown, honey eater seems to have property rights over this area of the street. Every morning we are greeted with two squaky sounds. Dom says the honeyeater's call sounds like that of a rooster with laryngitis.

Colourful visitors

When the yellow grevillea started bursting into blooms dripping with honey, I wondered whether we'd be visited by the lorikeets.Would they dare invade the honeyeater's territory? I didn't have to wait long for an answer.

One Saturday morning (7 June 03) while I was washing the car, I saw the lorikeets, a pair of them, swirling overhead and then swooping to land onto the highest branch of the yellow grevillea. One couldn't wait to get busy with the honey while the other stood tall and started to screech out. Not so much "Fire" but "Honey! Come and get it!" before it too began enjoying the nectar. The honeyeater was there, but didn't buzz them or discourage them. It seemed happy to have such colourful company.

These birds are exquisite. God had paint left over after he had made the rainbow, so he splashed the lorikeets with concentrated VIBGYOR.

I like to capture them, not physically, but in photos to enjoy and share. Why imprison them in cages, like Ted Hughes's parrots in a zoo where they descend to behaving like cheap tarts? I'd rather have them wild and free, dependent on no one, drinking the honey proferred by flowers.

And I can look forward every winter to their visiting my garden.