At the moment the boys and I are locked in battle with a group of neighbourhood menaces.
No, we aren’t being harassed by a gang of destructive teenagers, we have a group of Sulphur Crested Cockatoos who are trying to muscle in on the cushy ride our regular backyard parrots are getting.
If the cockies were happy to share the bounty we wouldn’t have a problem with them, but polite isn’t really their thing. They rudely flap in, sending the regulars dashing for cover and freaking out the chooks. They then eat everything in sight and retire to the trees waiting for the next course to be delivered while keeping everyone else at bay.
Although they are regular visitors to the street we haven’t had a problem with them before. They are usually well-catered for across the road but unfortunately for us the lady of the house has gone overseas for a few weeks and clearly the man of the house isn’t supplying the usual menu!
Cockies are lovely looking birds. They are large and intelligent and very animated, but having big, strong, smart birds with huge beaks around is a bit like giving a small child a pair of pliers and expecting them not to damage anything. It can only end in tears.
They eat the seed we put out, then they eat my plants then have a bite of anything else that might look tasty regardless of what it is made of. Aaargh! We had to get rid of them.
After spending days running out of the back door and flailing our arms about like maniacs each time they showed up the kids and I have finally trained them. If we see them in the backyard now all we have to do is step outside and they grumpily clear off.
The other birds have worked out what is going on too and instead of flying away in a panic will just keep their heads down until the menace has been removed then resume feeding as if nothing happened.
Hopefully the diner across the road will reopen soon, then they can go back to eating at their normal dinner table and leave us alone!!
On the washing line, just waiting….
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Clearly I am not the only one hating Telstra and their intermittent internet coverage at the moment. Over the weekend a nearby resident was outside the local shop, the busiest place in town of a weekend, collecting signatures on a petition that could easily have been titled “Fix our damn internet Telstra!!”
Of course the Man and I were both quick to sign. I doubt anything will come of it, but if they listen maybe one day I will be able to catch up on my blog reading. 😦
Buried words and Bushwa. 
My second introduction to the sulphur crested cockatoos today. They’re lovely looking birds and look very knowing. It’s a shame when they turn out to be bullies though and scare your regular friends away. I hope your neighbour returns quickly so your back yard can return to normal service. I hope your internet resumes normal service soon too. There’s nothing more frustrating than being withut the net or not being able to use it properly.
xxxx Huge Hugs Metan xxx
Hugs to you too, I was thinking of you today after seeing some of the news reports of that terrible storm in your part of the world. I hope all is well with you.
The cockies are spectacular birds when they are in a large group. They hang out in some of the trees in the town and look just amazing (noisy as well). You don’t want to park your car underneath them though, you will come back to find it covered in bits of half chewed twig!
I am experiencing good interwebs at the moment, of course it is quarter to one in the morning and I should be in bed like all of the others who have logged off and left me some space on the tower! 😉
Again – as it’s not some creepy that’s going to kill you – to the rest of us they look lovely. I thought it looked familiar and an internet search reveals that in one of the programme’s from my childhood they had a parrot on Play School, which I guess is what I’m remembering as the only picture I can turn up makes it look like a Sulphur Crested Cockatoo. Apparently Katoo used to go to work on the bus.
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2012/mar/04/wendy-duggan-obituary
I agree, they do look lovely, especially at someone elses house. 😉
Katoo does look like a cocky, I’m sure he would have loved the trips on the bus, they usually love attention and I’m sure he would have got it there. They are know for their mimcry too, I bet he was kept far away from sweary visitors, the wrong word at the wrong time could have ruined his children’s tv career! 😀
Is Jack not on the case with them?
When their wings are folded they are the same size as Jack. 🙂 I actually think one could do as much damage to her as she could to it!
They don’t get down low enough for her to get to them so they aren’t entirely stupid. Anyway, we have spent ages teaching her to leave the birds alone, asking her to discriminate between cocky for lunch and the parrots we want to enjoy just means everyone gets eaten! 😉
Ah, yes… out terriers love chasing birds and certainly do not distinguish between species. Unless they are chickens, which they know not to interfere with.
I suspect that Jack would love to interfere with our chickens, we have managed to keep them apart so far though. Phew. 🙂
Ugh, sympathies. I love cockies in ones. In flocks they resemble something out of Hitchcock’s The Birds. We get the odd few visiting but I’m convinced our resident magpies keep them from setting up shop permanently. Or maybe the cockies just don’t like what’s on offer on our compost heap!
Sadly I think Telstra is a lot like those cockies, except the arm flapping doesn’t do much good. 😦
There is one who comes on his own (the one in the picture) but I expect he is an advance party on a recon mission rather than a lonely soul looking for a handout. 🙂
You’re right, it is a bit like The Birds when they all come swooping in! Unfortunately the Maggies have claimed the hill and don’t consider the area around the house to be their territory.
I think the smaller parrots need to man up and chase off the cockies, they certainly have strength in numbers and, after not having enough seed in my hand to satisfy the one I was feeding a few minutes ago and getting a nip that has drawn blood for my negligence, they can certainly do some damage of their own! 🙂
lol I Know what you mean about the maggies. Mine have staked out the compost heap and only chase off the other birds at nesting time. Maybe you should tell your little parrots the parable about the bundle of sticks! Can’t remember it verbatim but it’s something about thin sticks can be easily broken one by one but a bundle of thin sticks can’t be broken, even by a strong man. Something like that. 🙂
Those Cockatoos look great, but can understand how they could be a pain to have around. Lets hope they go back to their usual haunt asap for you. I can relate to having poor internet as well, have complained about my web speed and connection many times. Well, on Monday they finally sent an engineer and we had new line installed. Much better, only thing was, on Sunday night a big storm hit the UK! We didn’t get the storm until the following morning in my area, by then it had lost most of its power, so wasn’t too bad. There was damage in many other areas though, guess we were just lucky. Still, the engineer turned up on time and quickly got to work on installing our new internet connection, climbing the telephone pole in the street, despite the wind and rain. So, we avoided any damage in the storm and got our internet sorted in one day. Hope you can get your internet sorted out soon as well.
I’m happy to enjoy them from a distance that’s for sure. 🙂
Wow, a real human person fixing your internet despite inclement weather, and on time?? I think you must live on another planet!!! 😀
Glad to hear it was fixed and that you survived the storm, it sounds like you were lucky not to get the worst of it.
Well I hope the Cockatoos move soon for you. Yes, it was great to finally get my internet sorted, the engineer was really good. We were very luck and missed the worst of the storm in my area. So, all in all, a good start to my week.
…but still, they’re gorgeous 😀
They are, you’re right. Luckily we are well supplied with beautiful birds in the garden so we can afford to discriminate. 🙂
One problem with feeding cockies regularly is that if you don’t deliver one day they will arrive, get bored and chew everything in sight. Their beaks are strong enough to pull apart pine cones so woe betide you if they are bored around your wooden house or outdoor furniture…..
Feathered house guests… lovely to enjoy the company of these clowns of the bird world for a while but if they out stay their welcome… Can you sneak across the road to your neighbours and donate some bird seed offsite to lure them back again?
Telstra have been calling me in response to my latest in a long list of complaints which they have no interest in resolving so I have no interest in taking or returning their calls.
She should be back in a week or so, I think we can bear it until then. If I go over and feed them myself they might see me and think I am weakening, then they will be here by the dozen!
Too bad to hear about your Telstra woes, I’m holding my tongue just right today or the moons are in the right alignment and I have no problems, I am scared to move in my chair though… I wonder if there are any satisfied customers? if only we could start up our own telco and actually deliver a real service, we would be rich I tell you, rich!!! 😀
I’m pretty sure that’s the conversation Jodee Rich, Brad Keeling, James Packer and Lachlan Murdoch had… when they came up with Onetel 😉
I forgot about that. It wasn’t a casino though, so I doubt that James’s heart was really in it… 😉
Oh yes, they sure can be a menace. It took a gang of them only about 2-3 years to completely destroy a neighbour’s walnut tree… not happy with removing and half eating the walnuts that were abandoned in all our yards, they then began stripping the bark. That beautiful tree had no chance.
Even worse, I believe, is when they become fixated on a portion of your home… the wooden window frames, patio rails, posts etc… and set about destroying those 🙄
Poor walnut tree. The pointless destruction they wreak upon anything that takes their fancy is hugely annoying. The half-eaten seed pods and stripped branches that rain down wherever they perch make it seem as though they are making a mess just for the fun of it! Our house is very chewable so that is the main reason I don’t want them to think they are welcome.
I going to admit up front that I’m kind of afraid of birds — yes, it’s silly but those beaks are scary. When I decided to have a cockatoo character in one of my novellas (Bram Stoker’s Summer Sublet) I had to do some serious research into parrots. How they are trained to talk. How intelligent they are. How violent they can be, etc.
They are remarkable creatures!
Your story adds to my admiration — and my fear. The idea that this particular class of highly intelligent bird was working in concert against another group in the parrot family makes them very, very scary.
Maybe another bird story is in the offing?
Please keep us posted. I hope that you’re right and when your neighbor comes home and their buffet of tasty treats returns, they will retreat.
If you are wary of birds cockies are definitely not the bird to gently acclimatize you to them. No shame in being afraid of them, they are like a bored two year old with pliers and no boundaries!
If they were more sociable we would probably just give up and let them join in, but they are such bullies they are definitely not welcome. It isn’t unusual to have five or more types of parrots in one small space feeding side by side, they tolerate each other without more than a warning flap when their personal space is invaded. The cockies though….. greedy and grumpy!
Parrots are smart but I think the cockies have been outdone by a few of the smaller parrots at the moment. As we are restricting the food we leave out for the regulars at the moment in order to discourage the cockies, some of the others who are used to being fed have resorted to clinging onto the window ledge or climbing up the fly screen right in front of me while I am doing the dishes just to attract my attention!
I really hope they go away soon, having clouds of brightly coloured parrots descending on the garden is one of the real pleasures of summer. 🙂