You lookin' at me?

Such lovely birds, magpies. I like their song better than any other bird's, so I'm always delighted to see them wandering around our garden. Yesterday, one seemed to be finding plenty to eat amongst the mulch around our baby zucchini plant, when it stopped for a moment, looked up, and saw another magpie doing the same.

Oh no! Fear not, the magpie looked at its grazing partner, then continued on with the more important business of searching for insects in the mulch.

This is the downside of installing a mirror in a small garden ... it does look nice to see the reflections of plants in the mirror, and it does help to make the small garden feel a bit bigger, but at the wrong time of year, it can start fights. 

Our grazing magpie was merely curious, but at other times of year, in the mating season, the sight of a "competitor" on their patch sends some birds into a flurry of wing flaps and hops, head butts and feints and other "go away" territorial displays ... and they'll never win against a mirror. The only outcome is that they might hurt themselves, which is something I definitely don't want.

So, when I notice a bird having a fight with itself, doing its own version of Robert de Niro's classic "You lookin' at me?" scene from Taxi Driver, I do shoo it away. One simple fix to the problem in our case is to open my shed door, which, when it swings open, blocks the mirror.

But lots of home owners with generous expanses of windows facing gardens will know what I am talking about, and have a much bigger problem. At the wrong time of day, at the wrong time of year, those windows become mirrors which can send mating birds into lethal frenzies of competition as they try to see off the "intruder" (by flying straight into the window). Whack! Some will do it repeatedly, such is there competitive instinct, and many birds have died for their cause.

It's such a hard problem to prevent, and as most gardeners love to not only see birds in their gardens but actively try to attract winged visitors with nectar plants, birdbaths, etc, it's just a risk for us to be aware of, and to helpfully 'shoo' a bird away from self-harm when you can, but in the mating season, your garden is "territory" to be fought for, and tragedy is always on the cards.

The Hills are Alive!

Some books dare to suggest that potato flowers are 'insignificant', but they don't take into account the significance of the first potato flower for a newbie potato-grower, do they! While my potato patch is belting along this generous Sydney spring, with every plant bristling with flower buds, none has progressed to the next step, well at least until this morning, that is.

Here's the Lone Ranger, daring to be first. Hardly an insignificant flower at all. Quite economical in its prettiness, perhaps even workmanlike as a bloom, but a little burst of pure white with a sunny centre. You'll do me!

Of course the other aspect of growing spuds is this 'hilling' business. I can now see why people grow spuds in cages of straw or stacks of tyres. But in true newbie style I just planted them in what seemed at the time to be deep trenches, following the books to the letter. But as the potatoes grew and the hills piled up around them, the potatoes just grew some more.

All my herb pots have been commandeered to act as 'foothills' to keep the mounds in place. I've been lucky that we haven't had any torrential rains, so the solidity of the hills hasn't been tested. No matter if they get whacked one day. I'll just rebuild them the next morning.

The potato plants themselves are outrageously green and healthy, and you can see that close family resemblance to tomato plants here.

Fortunately, I had just harvested my best-ever and biggest batch of home-made compost around the time I needed to start building my potato hills. It's lovely and sweet and crumbly stuff, and to make the hills I mix it up 50:50 with sugar cane mulch. I'm sure the potatoes love the gentle feed provided by the compost, and the wonderful thing is that at the end of the potato harvest all the compost and mulch goes back into the compost bins to be turned into even more compost for the garden.

While outside this morning snapping away at the hills, a young magpie came down to the birdbath for a drink. And so instead of finishing off this blog with a trug full of compost, bountifully fertile though that might be, I thought I'd finish up with a magpie's delightful carolling song instead.

http://www.birdinbackyards.net/images/audio/gymnorhina-tibicen.mp3