Seeds Of Doubt

Should we feed our native birds? The answer is not so simple.

- Darryl Jones

CONSIDER THESE TWO typical Australian garden scenes. In one, a boisterous rainbow lorikeet flock squabbles and squawks over a mass of brilliant crimson bottlebrush blossoms. In the second, a pair of lorikeets nibbles delicately at a pile of minced meat placed on a bird table for magpies, which are looking on warily from a nearby fence.

Before categorising these scenes as either natural versus unnatural or even good versus bad, consider some additional information. That bottlebrush is one of the visually spectacular Callistemon cultivars developed from plants native to Western Australia’s arid interior but manipulated to flower year-round, with blooms twice the normal size and producing much more nectar than usual. It’s heaven for any bird with a ‘sweet tooth’ and lorikeets – as well as miners, wattlebirds and friarbirds – love them. These avian nectar-lovers have rushed en masse into suburbs across the country now festooned with seemingly ‘birdfriendly’ native plants. And they’ve done it to such an extent that rainbow lorikeets have become one of the most abundant bird species in every large city in the country. The notorious noisy miner is another native that’s prospered, to the detriment of countless smaller species. For many of us, planting all those callistemons, grevilleas and banksias supporting this urban avian life was an attempt to provide native bird habitat. In the end, however, we’ve often ended up with plenty of birds but not so much species diversity.

It may not seem like it, but growing these plants is a form of bird-feeding. And it’s promoted and supported by all the relevant bird, conservation, environmental and government agencies, even if they vigorously oppose regular bird-feeding.