Friday, March 19, 2010

Just the sound of determined crunching...

Image from Google Images

Our skies have been besieged by these guys - sulphur-crested cockatoos. A native of Australia, they have an unusual, screeching call. They eat the acorn-like nuts that are in the plane trees that line our streets and at about this time of year - when the nuts are just right, presumably - they descend en masse. There are probably 200 in the trees surrounding our house right now. And when they're not screeching all you hear is a determined crunch, crunch, crunch of nuts.

PS I've posted this pic in preference to one of my own - every time I got near them, they all flew away!

4 comments:

Diana Kennedy said...

These are wonderful white Birds.
All an exotic thought to me, living within Trees populated by them.

Feronia said...

It was quite extraordinary - they were just everywhere - in the trees, on the ground, wheeling around in the sky...

Stardust said...

They're so cute but it's hard to imagine a 200 of them all together at once!

I used to keep a yellow crest in the past, it was adorable.

Feronia said...

They are lovely birds but quite noisy en masse!