Grevillea Robusta

My tree of the week is the 'silky oak'. You can't help but notice them at the moment with their fiery splash of orange in the landscape. I've admired several on my walk over the past few weeks, highly visible even at a distance. Returning this morning I stopped to admire the one at the top end of Quinn Rd.
A white cocky was perched in the top branches. Besides the odd squawk, it just sat in the top of the tree, seemingly watching me, as I was it. Another large bird which I made out to be a currawong, was also in the tree quite close to the cocky, but more inside the tree. These birds didn't seem to mind each others company in the slightest, which I was musing over, given that both are aggressive birds, when the currawong approached the cocky closer and closer till they eyeballed. After a second or two the cocky did a spectacular leap and wing flap off the branch theatrically and flew away screeching, as if it feared contracting bird flu.
The currawong took a step across to the precise point on the branch where the cocky was standing and did a huge poo, which splashed it's way earthward through grevillea flowers. It then puffed up its feathers in a self satified manner, seemingly happy to have dropped its load and displaced cocky. It did a big shake, restoring its feathers, and gave a few calls of its own.
Of course the 'silky oak' isn't an oak but a tree-type grevillea which grows naturally in the rainforests of the east, particulary Queensland. It's often planted in gardens as an ornamental, and the timber is excellent for furniture. We have one at the farm which the Punjab brought up from his family home as a seedling of a large tree which was removed, from memory. Three or four years ago it was looking sick and 70% defoliated but it seems to have recovered and has flowered brilliantly this year.
So Punjab, as you are bunkered down in the Yukon in the norther winter, you can take comfort that we've enjoyed the flowering of the silky oak you gave us in 1973. It too, is a popular bird roost.