Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Priorities.....Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo

I'm sure we all have a set of unwritten priorities when it comes to everyday life. So I'm also sure
that you would do the same thing as I did yesterday morning, in similar circumstances.
I was alerted by my visiting granddaughter Caitlyn, in her usual dramatic way, that a terrible catastrophe was taking place in the toilet. "Water's going everywhere grandpa, come quickly". Something was not well with the cistern, and water was spraying everywhere, including over me, and I soon found myself standing in a few millimetres of an ever widening pool of water, clean I hasten to add! I stopped the flow, but as I walked back through the kitchen to put on some old (and dry) clothes before fixing the problem, I glanced out of the window and down the garden. High in the angophora near the bottom of the garden, I could see a solitary large bird, unmistakably a Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo.
They visit on occasions to feed on the Banksia integrifolia flowers and seeds, but this was the first visit of the year. Any thought of fixing the cistern or cleaning up, quickly disappeared, as I grabbed a camera and headed off down the garden. Unfortunately, the bird had flown. So thinking that was that, I headed back up the garden, but on nearing the house, I heard the unmistakable "kee-ow" scream of their contact call coming from the other side of a banksia spinulosa close to the house. Frustratingly, I couldn't even see the bird, let alone photograph it--foiled again. Eventually it flew back down the garden onto to one of the "integrifolias", finally giving me my photo opp., images shown. As I closed on the cockatoo at top right, I realised it was not alone in the banksia. as a head popped up on the far side, this time a male, pictured at left, and a third bird called from nearby, so they were most likely a family group. After 15 or so minutes, I heard an approaching flock of their fellows, about 18 in all, and "my group" soon joined them. all flying off to the east.
But it wasn't quite over yet. As I climbed the steps to the backdoor, the local flock of 40 or more Galahs, flew over screeching and obviously agitated, usually a sign of a predator about. But the object of their concern was a passing Pelican, fairly uncommon over my garden, flying high to who knows where.
So finally back to the cleanup, but feeling a whole lot more contented than I had a short while ago.

2 comments:

Denis Wilson said...

Hi Allan
Lovely clean images of the Cockies.
I get them here all the time - high on tops of Pine trees, and useless photographically. Black silhouettes is all one gets.
Cheers
Denis

BirdingTas said...

Thanks Denis. I know only too well the problem you describe. They visit nearby large pines quite often during the winter, spending hours carving up green cones, presumably after the seeds and,as you say, it's pretty useless trying to get good shots. I'm always surprised that such a large bird can be so difficult to find, even among the foliage of banksias. But having found them, they're often quite easy to get close to and it's always interesting to listen to them "chatting" amongst themselves!