Murder by Death

Tasks for Bodhi Day:  ... Feed the birds, adopt a pet, hold the door open for someone with a smile, or stop to pet a dog (that you know to be friendly).

My task for this one falls firmly under the feed the birds category.  We have two weeping mulberry bushes in our garden; one in the front and one in the back.  The tree in the front always makes thousands of smaller mulberries and is the first to go ripe in the spring.  I collect at least a gallon of mulberries from it each season, before the one in the back, which has larger fruit, starts to ripen.  When this happens I generally let the blackbirds have the remaining fruit off the front tree. 

But this year we have a new guest; a rather bold boy I've named Charlie.  He's a Pied Currawong and he felt that the front tree ought to be his from the start.  MT and I both noticed him 'guarding' the tree right before the fruit started to pink up, and he'd sit there and eye us, even as we walked within a foot or two of him.  He's a big bird, about the size of a Raven, so I suppose he felt he could take us if he had to.   

Once I started picking the fruit, he was... nonplussed.  He'd sit on the fence a few feet away, head tilted as he eyed me, croaking at me the entire time.  He'd pace up and down the fence and once I went under the tree's canopy (it's a small tree, about 8 ft or so), he'd land on top of the tree and shake it up a bit, causing the mulberries to rain down all over my head.  Not aggressively, but more as a prank. 

After a stern talking-to, Charlie agreed to take turns, although in the last few days my back garden Mulberry has started giving me more fruit than I can harvest, so Charlie is blissed out, with the tree all to himself.

(The pictures aren't great, sorry - I grabbed these with my iPhone this morning.  Great camera, terrible zoom.)