An infestation of cockatoos

My fitful sleep was in tatters, shredded by the most unholy cacophony, fit to wake the dead. Almost impossible to describe but something akin to a mechanical contraption desperately in need of oil, with metal parts rasping cruelly against each other. Shrill, discordant, unpleasant, intrusive.

Startled fully awake, I lay trying to comprehend, to make sense of this weird, unfamiliar HORRIBLE noise. 

Not coming from a close-by road, but overhead. Perplexed and fully attentive now, I was aware of it travelling from farmland some distance off. Louder and louder. Dreadful ... what on earth? Birds? There must be hundreds, but what are they? Not anything usual for these parts. Eventually they passed overhead and wheeled off into the distance - come morning I forgot their very existence.

Until

North side of the house

Snowy white feathers, cute as a button close up, entertaining, amusing, inquisitive, swinging from strands of bark and twiglets barely able to hold their weight...

but not so delightful in these numbers

West side of the house

quarrelsome

noisy

voracious feeders

(in what is left of the lopped tree)

South side of the house

ravenous

East side of the house

Many farmers and graziers despise cockatoos due to their extremely destructive nature. Even in suburbia they've been known to strip timber from houses, shred insulation boxes and create havoc.

So when they were frightened off by a passing truck I was rather pleased

Debris from their visit

I wonder if their appearance in such large numbers has anything to do with the locust plague earlier in the year followed by the floods? Perhaps they've found their way south foraging for food? It's easy to forget that the repercussions from natural disasters affect birds and animals too and this could be just one of many events playing out across the country.

Ah ha! Technically speaking this is a Little Corella or Cacatua sanguinea (I wonder if that's from sanguine, meaning cheerful or hopeful or for the ruddy complexion?)


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