The Lutino Rosy-faced Lovebird

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I honestly don’t know what it is about our sweet potato patch. It’s like a magnet for unusual birds, if you ask me. The latest avian visitor was spotted this morning, literally right in the middle of the sweet potato patch – easy to see because it was bright yellow amidst all that greenery.

I have to admit that the sweet potato vines have gone pretty wild. They initially provided ground cover under our old mango tree, but then they got more bold and have been growing over potted plants that were also enjoying the dappled shade, going to the extent of climbing up plant stands and, if allowed to, smothering the plants there. So within that sea of leaves are some pretty big pots that are hidden, with their plants barely visible. And within the bushy foliage of a potted asparagus fern was this little feathered creature…

Little yellow bird in the middle of the sweet potato patch

What an amazing shade of yellow it was! And with such intriguing shades of peachy-orange around the face. My guesstimate at its size is about 15 cm high. We looked at each other for a while until I determined it wasn’t terrified of me, about 6 metres away from it, inside the house. Then I got the camera and started taking pictures carefully. It just sat there for a while, perched on, probably, the rim of the wire pot stand that the fern is on. After looking around, to my delight, it began feeding on the sweet potato leaves, stretching its neck up to grab the edges of the leaves and ripping pieces off. From time to time, it would make little tweets. Guess it was enjoying itself!

The lovebird feeding on the sweet potato leaves surrounding its perch

After perhaps 20-30 minutes of feeding, it flew up to my neighbour’s lipstick palm tree where it chose to perch on a dried branch and, I assume, clean or sharpen its beak. I’m not an expert on birds – I’m guessing that’s what it was doing! It was there for at least 10-15 minutes, tweeting from time to time.

The lovebird either cleaning or sharpening its beak on a dry palm tree leaf

Satisfied that I’d taken some decent photos, I next turned to some friends and the Internet to try to find out what the bird was. My first assumption was some kind of parakeet. However, the closest match my friend found was the Lutino Rosy-faced Lovebird. Now, I doubt it’s a native to Singapore, so it’s probably an escapee from somewhere. It also didn’t appear troubled by people, so it might have been domesticated. Perhaps a bird expert can provide some enlightenment on this?

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Caterpillar visitors

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Lots of new plants apparently mean the introduction of new caterpillars, among other things. Here are a few of the caterpillars spotted lately:

Our regular buddy, the green hawk moth larvae, caught once again feasting on caladiums

No idea what caterpillar this is, but it is pictured along the edge of a long bean flower

I discovered this chappie when I noticed a leaf of the Ballad sunflower with the edges curled together. When I opened it, I found this caterpillar suspended inside, in a web-like hammock.

The next day, the cocoon had begun to form. I forgot to keep an eye on it as a few rainy days followed. Too bad I opened up the leaf and removed its protection, huh? :P

Finally, the most unusual one - a hairy caterpillar that reminds me of fishing lures!

Now, I’m no expert on caterpillars, so I can’t offer names for these little visitors, but I hope you appreciate their uniqueness as much as I did. We gardeners may not enjoy how they ravage our plants, but it’s just something we have to live with when we flaunt their food sources in our gardens…

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Fruitful days ahead

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It’s such a lovely feeling when a gardener sees flowers starting to form – especially when the flowers are the prelude to the formation of fruits.

As you know, I grow a lot of my plants from seeds, and have been continuously sowing this and that since just after Christmas. The result has been all the recent growth happening here, what with leaves and buds and flowers and fruits.

Long beans just hanging and growing in the beautiful morning sunshine...

The bean plants have been growing like crazy. Each vine has started sprouting new side-vines, and it’s getting to be a real tangle! The long beans are more advanced than the winged beans, and we’ve already harvested the first few beans – oh boy, were they sweet! 8) I suspect the winged beans will start to bud within the next few weeks; but since it’s my first time growing them, that’s just an educated guess on my part.

Cucumber flowers can start growing right at the base of the plant. Like most vine plants I've noticed, the male flowers start blooming first.

Our currently lone cucumber plant has also started flowering – male flowers for now, though. I planted it more because it was the only of my plants to attract ladybugs last year, and I wanted as many beneficial insects possible in what has become the kitchen plants corner of the garden. However, I wouldn’t say no to any cucumber fruits it manages to produce!

The first female bittergourd flowerbud. See the tiny fruit between the bud and stem? The males have only a long, skinny stalk supporting them. Heh.

The bittergourd vines are also growing rapidly. Side vines are growing from the main vines, and I expect my trellis to be covered in no time. Flower buds have also started to form, and I saw the first female bud – easily identifiable by the tiny fruit behind the bud – right at the highest point of the trellis. Male flowers have already begun appearing. See my post from last year on the differences between male and female bittergourd flowers if you’re interested.

A tiny spinach ... fruit? Wonder what it'll look like when it's ripe.

Most surprising to me are the fruits forming on the water spinach plants. Ah yes, I know I should have thought of that before – if I grew the plants from seeds, then logically the seeds came from fruits, that came from flowers, right? Sometimes, I just don’t think… :P

Purple brinjal plant getting its growing gig on. Finally.

The purple brinjal plants are also picking up momentum. It’s my first time growing them, and I wasn’t sure where to place them, so decided to keep them in pots. They’re getting bigger, though, and that alone makes me happy. I also managed to get viable seeds for the green brinjal (finally), and those plants are also growing, but they’re still young. I expect that the purple plants will mature within the coming month, which will be fun for me, because I love to see how each plant grows and develops. That’s what makes me the Curious Gardener! :)

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The aphid saga continues

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The ladybug approaching the aphid colony

I must be nuts, I thought, to allow the aphids to keep living on my bean plants.

The first two colonies that I found on my long bean plants had been sprayed a little with insecticide, before I noticed a ladybug in the vicinity. Fearing to harm it, I put the spray aside and hoped that nature would take its course and the ladybug would bring friends to eat the aphids.

Unfortunately, both aphids and ladybug disappeared and escaped my notice for over a week, and I thought the insecticide had scared them all away. Then, a few days ago, I found more aphids on my adjoining winged bean plants. That’s when I really had to restrain myself not to take action, apart from squishing a few aphids with the vague hope that the scent of “aphid juice” would attract the ladybug again, stat. Watching the aphids multiply while ants attended protectively to them was not easy. I kept telling myself I must be crazy, even despite my friend Sky’s hope that I’d one day see the ladybug feeding on the aphids. In my dreams, I told myself.

You shall not pass - ants block the ladybug from the aphids

Finally, on the third day, I saw a really tiny bug running rapidly along the stem that the aphids were breeding on. It became like a scene from a cartoon with me trying to see what the bug was, and the bug running away on fast little legs. I did see that it was round, but couldn’t determine its colour, except that it was dark. Was it a baby ladybug? I didn’t know. Do ladybugs even grow from small bugs to adults or do they morph into adult bugs after going through the larvae and pupae stages? I didn’t know that either, and couldn’t tell from the pictures on the Net, because they may not have been displayed at the same scale. Oh well.

Two days later, there were at least three little bugs running and flitting around – but the aphids had disappeared from that stem and migrated to a new vine two plants down, together with their nursemaid ants. Then, half a handspan away, I noticed an adult ladybug! It seemed to be resting on the underside of a leaf. Go eat aphids, I mentally urged it. Shortly, I was rewarded by the sight of it scuttling down the leaf stem towards the cluster of aphids. However, the ants sensed danger and ran to block the way. The ladybug did an about-turn and scuttled back up the stem.

It made me think of Pacman, especially when the ladybug turned back and ran to the aphids again… It managed to reach the edge of the colony, despite the ants trying to block it. I’m not sure, but I think it grabbed a small aphid before it turned and went back to the leaf.

The spider munching on an aphid on its high perch

I was thrilled to see this in action!

I was even more interested to note that a spider was also feeding on the aphids. While the ants were distracted by the ladybug, the spider ran down from the other side and seized a medium-sized aphid that it carried to a higher vantage point to eat. I wish my camera had a better zoom so you could see the aphid clutched in front of it in the picture.

It’s a little mean, but I’m comforted by the fact that the aphid population will be controlled well by nature’s creatures. After all, nature knows best when it comes to maintaining a balance and we can learn when we just stop to watch it at work.

© 2011 curiousgardener.com All rights reserved.


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