I grow lots of roses and one of my son's small pleasures is to pick bunches of them and display them in bowls on the table. Everything was fine until the day there happened to be a few blossoms of 'Woburn Abbey' (an orange floribunda) in the bowl.
(Aside: orange is the Beaks' favourite colour. This has been borne out so many times, I should have realised they'd go for Wob Abb!)
Of course, within seconds of being released into the living room, both Beaks had made a beeline for the rose bowl and decapitated all poor Matt's Wob Abbs in one fell swoop! No sooner were the Wob Abbs gone than they started on the 'New Duet's and 'Double Delight's. Matthew went pear-shaped! On the one hand, he wanted to rescue his beloved roses, but on the other he was glad to see the Beakies enjoying themselves. As far as the Beaks were concerned, Matt might as well have been in WoopWoop (NB. 'WoopWoop' is a mythological Australian place which is infamously far away from everywhere). Anyway, it took no less than five minutes for Barney and Madge to behead every single bloom in the rose bowl.
It took but another five for them to chomp up all the beautiful scented petals and turn them into confetti.
Now comes the really scary part. Mr Dominic, who had never formerly taken the slightest interest in flowers of any sort, observed all this brouhaha from his vantage point up on his fridge. The VERY NEXT TIME he was down on the table, guess what he did? Yep! Marched right up to the rose bowl and snipped the head off every bloom. Then, he made much of turning the poor, beheaded flowers into his morning tea! Is there no Justice???
Since then, the little horrors have discovered my modest collection of African Violets on the kitchen windowsill. I have to be vigilant because the naughty Beakies are forever looking to shave leaves off the poor little violets and eat them. Since we have Bath Time at the kitchen sink, this makes it all very awkward indeed: supervising marauding wet Beakies who are hell-bent on munching me Afro Vilets is like wrangling a swimming pool full of eels!
Now, I'd like to point out that no one set out to feed the flowers to the birds. It just sort of happened. Since none of them has fallen off its perch yet, I think it's safe to say that roses and African Violets are OK in moderation. So long as you're willing to sacrifice them, that is. :22_yikes:
One thing I would like to know for my own edification is 'Can you feed Camellia blossoms to birds?' I have lots of those as well and many to spare. I'm sure the birds would enjoy the odd camellia for tiffin or arvo tea but I'm reluctant to allow it till someone can assure me it's safe.
