Sitting on a red-hot poker

Now that your eyes have stopped watering, you will be pleased to know this is about the garden plant - Kniphofia sp - and nothing to do with urban legends about the death of  Edward II of England nor the Red Hot Polkas.

Last year I did include some images of Eastern Spinebills feeding on the flowers.  This year the crop of flowers is even better and we are getting a wide range of birds dining on them.  So I thought I would use this post as a repository for the images captured.

The first image is a juvenile Eastern Spinebill.
Followed by some adults (note the prominent throat spot).



Next is a White-eared Honeyeater
The next two are of Noisy Friarbird.  The first image is included mainly to illustrate the bizarre positions these birds can adopt when feeding.

To my surprise these have been the only species of birds coming to dine at the poker table (although they have been coming very frequently).  Insects have been few and far between also: this ant is the only one that has been kind enough to pause for a picture.
This did inspire me to take a shot of just the flowers: the sheer number of florets shows how much nectar  must be generated by these flowers (and how many hiding places for arthropods there are).

Comments

stephanie said…
There is one another Red Hot Poker name which used in casinos and when I see your post title in google searches then suddenly I felt strange about "Sitting on a red hot poker" :p
22 March 2012 at 16:48:00 GMT+11
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