One of my aims when developing this garden was for it to be a biodiversity haven. I chose plants to encourage beneficial insects and to provide food and habitat for birds of all kinds. Nine years on the garden is full of life: myriad insects, birds, lizards and frogs are either residents or frequent visitors. Some we see on most days, others are not uncommon, still others occasionally use the garden as a resting/feeding spot before moving on. For a few days we were visited by a dollar bird, a refugee from bushfires further north, but we have never seen it again. Birds of prey are not common, but have been seen in our trees on a number of occasions.
Frequent visitors are several types of honeyeaters and rosellas. Today, we saw both crimson and eastern rosellas eating berries on a crepe myrtle at the same time. The erica 'White Delight' is a favourite with wattle birds, eastern spinebills, blue-faced honeyeaters and New Holland honeyeaters, to name its most frequent visitors. Neither of these plants is a native, yet both are beneficial to the biodiversity of the garden. The erica is almost always in flower and is so popular with so many birds that I now have three of them planted close to the house. Grevilleas, banksias, and callistemons are also often visited by honeyeaters.
Grasses provide food for the little seed-eating wrens and finches, and the insects that are here in abundance provide food for numerous birds, including being part of the honeyeaters' diet. The biodiversity web of my garden becomes more complex and interesting as time passes and birds are an important strand of this web.
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