While most of the State was engrossed with cockroaches and cane toads and which one would win the State of Origin (yay NSW!), at the July meeting of the Galston Garden Club, members were given hints and tips to encourage bird life into their gardens. Our guest speaker was Cathy Goswell from the Cumberland Bird Observers Club, a self-confessed, enthusiastic amateur, she was knowledgeable and brought many interesting facts.
Cathy spoke on her favourite subject Native birds and urban habitats, the statistics amazed us, out of the 10,000 bird species globally 8,908 can be seen in Australia with 300 species that can be seen in our local area. We are certainly blessed with what we have. As Cathy brought up pictures of various birds, and explained their habitat and feeding needs, their calls filled the hall and there were many that we instantly recognised as ones we had heard before and could now picture in our minds. She stressed the importance of creating space for birds by first deciding what type of bird you wanted to attract – honey eaters, owls, parrots, insectivores etc and then provide the setting to encourage them in.
Two great websites she recommended were www.birdsinbackyards.net and www.birdlife.org.au, she encouraged all of us to get out and become familiar with the birds in our local area and to take part in the Birds in Backyards program to survey and observe the birds in your backyard which is done quarterly.
This year’s Open Gardens Weekend will be on Fri 18th – Sun 20th October: The Open Gardens Committee are now well and truly busy organising this wonderful annual event. We will be presenting three new gardens that have not been open before, as well as three gardens that have continued to be developed and have not been open for a few years, plus a couple of familiar favourites. This year Northholm Grammar School will also be opening in conjunction with the Galston Open Gardens to showcase their aquaponics gardens, if you haven’t seen how beautifully this system works it will be well worth a look. An inclusive ticket is $25 per person and gives entrance to all the gardens (valid for three days), OR entrance to a single garden is $5 per person with children under 18 admitted free.
