This week’s bird of the week is the sulphur-crested cockatoo.
My wife Deb still remembers being amazed at seeing flocks of these big white birds when we first were driven home from the airport. Now we see cockatoos we are not so surprised, but still impressed.
They are definitely a bit like how you would imagine pterosaurs to be. Usually when they fly they announce their presence with a continuous screeching/squawking noise.
So when you get a large group of them together, it’s a raucous. The other night we watched a few 100 of them at our local golf course roosting for the night. Every time one would move about, it would set off some serious squawking…followed by a period of brief quiet, then another would move, setting off more squawking. Hard to get sleep in that neighborhood – whether you’re a bird or some other kind of beast!
When they fly, it is with urgency, like they are thinking they might drop out of the sky if they stop beating their wings frantically. Not great gliders, I guess.
Watching them eat and drink is fun though – as you’ll see in the following video, they enjoy their pine cones, drinking water, and eating sand.
As I said, they are everywhere here and noisy – but still, it is amazing seeing this exotic pet carrying on like the wild bird it is.
David, well done video. Don.