Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
For residents of West Leederville (in Perth’s inner suburbia) the second day of February 2025 provided yet another nice reminder that Australia’s birds are – collectively – the world’s loudest..and the most intelligent.
Hereabouts, late last Sunday afternoon was something of a “benign riot” for one species: Calyptorhynchus banksii naso – the Forest red-tailed black cockatoo.
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We briefly interrupt the “Grand sands” series to celebrate a currently-abundant, loud, exuberant and welcome presence in our bit of inner-suburban Perth.
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Southwest WA’s black cockatoos are highly sociable and very intelligent.
They are intermittently LOUD, but rarely aggressive/disputatious.
Breeding pairs usually “bond” permanently, and both parents are remarkably attentive to their offspring.
When it comes to enjoying their food, very evidently – both the “capturing” and the consumption thereof – these birds have few peers.
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One of life’s recurrent pleasures in southwest WA is to watch how any member of the region’s three endemic species of black cockatoo “deals with” his or her food.
This involves hugely-varying amounts of “difficulty” or “effort”, depending on whatever is the currently-relevant “nut”, “spike”, “seed pod”, “cone”, or flower.
For Carnaby’s black cockatoos, Banksia are a staple food source.
Extracting Banksia seeds from a “cone” is equally a matter of precision and power.
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There is the small matter of nothing but blue skies being a recipe for the end of all life on “our” planet.
Supplying water is, however, not clouds’ only good quality.
If you wish to photograph birds, trees or flowers – most especially if you are using a digital camera, and there is no “screen” of vegetation immediately behind them – intense, unshaded sunlight is not your “dreams come true”.
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This post’s photo was taken only a few seconds after the previous post’s.
As you can see, the “bin chickens” were not the only birds then coming in to roost at Lake Monger.
In recent months corellas have absolutely ravaged previously well-grassed parts of the Lake’s southern shoreline.
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The above photo and the one immediately below feature the same individual.
Unmistakably, the tail announces that this forest red-tailed black cockatoo is a male..
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Above, is the most “heraldic” photo I have taken of a Forest red-tailed black cockatoo.
She is the same individual as in #20, this post’s “moment” happened a fraction of a second earlier.
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Late afternoon, in a recently-burnt section of Shenton Bushland, a female Forest red-tailed black cockatoo spreads both wings and tail..
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From behind, as a female Forest red-tailed black cockatoo “lifts off” from a so-called “Cape Lilac” tree…
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