There’s a definite shift as autumn fades on the South Coast. The grass starts turning brown, even with these strange storms every now and then that give it a boost of green for a few extra days.
When we look out over the valley to the opposite slope, the brown is obvious between the evergreen pines. But when you look at the canopy of the indigenous forest just below the house, it still looks as green as mid-summer.
But the stickiness in the air is gone now. And there are very different sorts of birds around the garden. The scarlet fire finches come out to hop over the short grass and through the thickets.
The toppies pair off and make a racket in the berry trees, competing with the clumsy mousebirds for the fruit. Even the crowned hornbills fly up from the bottom of the valley daily now. Their orange beaks glimmering in the sunshine as they noisily flit from tree to tree.
They always look like they’re going to fall out of the sky and then pump their wings to lift their bodies again and again. It’s a very awkward flying style, and easy to identify if you can only see a silhouette against the glare. They’ve got quite a melodic sound compared to the screeching trumpeter hornbills, too.
The greater double-collared sunbirds are also fluttering about chasing off rivals so that they can sample the aloes in peace. The orieles are wonderfully vocal too, flashing bright yellow with black heads and zipping right over our house as they disappear back to the safety of the forest in the late afternoon.
The kingfisher’s turquoise, the amethyst’s black, and the tinkerbird’s red dot are also daily gems.
With all the colours, we rarely notice the brown grass or the dusty roads. What a gift it is to be able to pass the winters in such rich company.
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