Sunday, December 12, 2010

Just wait one cherry pickin minute

I've written before about how much I love birds, and how my parents garden is an absolute haven for them.

A large part of the backyard is an informal orchard. In the orchard are two cherry trees. The original one was planted by my parents. It is grafted with a couple of cherry varieties and is carefully protected under a large bird net to make sure we get to eat them. The other is a self-sown child of the original tree. Now very large it also gets covered in cherries, but they are tart and not nearly as juicy, so it is left uncovered for the birds to feast on.

As it has grown, it has developed one, almost horizontal branch with very few leaves. This makes it the ideal bird perch. Today I watched a rosella systematically picking a cherry, climbing the tree to the perch branch where it would then sit to enjoy its treat. When finished, it would toddle off to a cluster of cherries and repeat the process. It was so cute.

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