More about Sulphur Crested Cockatoos
Sulphur Crested Cockatoo
Yesterday I had a comment on an earlier post that made some interesting, informative and entertaining things to say about the behaviour of Sulphur Crested Cockatoos. In part, Scot was questioning my statement that this species was a bit flighty and hard to photograph. With his permission I quote his comments in full.
I’m surprised that you say that Sulphur Cresteds are hard to approach, Trevor. There’s a wild flock in the centre of Sydney that live in the botanic garden and it’s quite easy to wander around watching them dismantling various trees there. You can get quite close if you are careful.
They also use this as a base to invade much of the urban inner city area - some people feed them off their high rise balconies. I lived in Sydney’s inner east until very recently and they have, for the last 15 years or more, been a fixture of life in Woolloomooloo. Screeching their heads off and engaging aerobatic flying and tourist harassment and everything all year long.
In the last place I lived, in Potts Point, they used to regularly settle upon the trees in my street and proceed to demolish them for their fruit (which I note the Currawongs also ate). They will also attack human artifacts, such as the one we tried chasing off our neighbor’s window sill after it took a liking to shredding the fly screen. I guess living in centre of the big city they are used to humans completely. This one just looked me up and down, calculated that I couldn’t actually physically reach it, and then calmly returned to shredding activities.
They also once attacked a big foam spider effigy the museum had stuck on the front to advertise a spider exhibition they had on. I think they do this sort of stuff for pure entertainment value. They are hooligans and vandals and I love ‘em!
Scot
Thanks to Scot for permission to post his comments.
Related articles:
- Photo Gallery - photos of birds, animals, flowers, travel and more.
Blog Entries