This is a sulphur crested cockatoo. It’s awfully pleased with itself right now because its EATING OUR CHESTNUTS. That wouldn’t be such a problem apart from two things. Firstly, we only tend to get chestnuts at the top of the tree. We don’t have a nearby cross pollinator and that’s the only place that gets any that the wind brings in, so there aren’t that many chestnuts to go around. Secondly, it’s never just one cockatoo. They travel around in packs of twenty or more, eating pretty much anything in their path. They’ll pick the seeds out of every lemon on the lemon tree, eat your wooden balcony railing and even gnaw on your actual house if they decide they’ve got a taste for it. Oh, and if you ever make the mistake of trying to handle one, they’ll have a pretty good go at biting one of your fingers off.
We have a collection of tennis balls on the back deck that regularly get lobbed at the little buggers as they shred various bits of our garden. Our cat is waiting enthusiastically for us to hit one. Given my aim, he’s going to be waiting a while.
I couldn’t resist posting a picture of these little guys, who came into work on friday, umbilical cords still attached. Unfortunately their mum was killed, but they’ve now gone to a WIRES carer and will hopefully go on to live long, happy lives.
Blue tongue lizards are the largest members of the skink family. One of their favourite foods are snails, so they’re generally very welcome in Australian backyards.
This is a yellow tailed black cockatoo. Cute isn’t it? Hmm.
We have several enormous pine trees at the bottom of our garden. They’re at least four storeys high. At the moment they’re covered in immature pine cones which look like this.
Black cockatoos love pine cones. Unfortunately they don’t always hang onto them very well as they busily tear them to shreds. So every now and then a large, hard object bigger than my fist comes hurtling down from the top of the trees. I’ve started walking about with the compost bin lid held over my head. The compost bin lid is covered in enormous slugs. Needless to say, I’m not amused.
This is a king parrot, snapped by me doing one of the things the little bastards love to do best; eating our apples. And they don’t even do it politely. They take a few bites, decide they can’t be bothered any longer, lob the apple onto the ground and move on to the next one. It drives me crazy, so crazy that this year I’ve resorted to this.
It’s amazing what you can do with steel rods, electrical conduit, netting and garden ties. I’m not looking forward to getting it off again though.
Hi. Welcome to my website and thanks for visiting!
I’m new to the whole website construction thing, so I apologise for any weirdness you may encounter browsing around. Please bear with me over the next few months as I add content and sort stuff out. Hope you find something here that interests you.
And here’s a gratuitous radiograph of a pregnant turtle to get you started.
Writer, Veterinarian and Chaotic Gardener
This is a sulphur crested cockatoo. It’s awfully pleased with itself right now because its EATING OUR CHESTNUTS. That wouldn’t be such a problem apart from two things. Firstly, we only tend to get chestnuts at the top of the tree. We don’t have a nearby cross pollinator and that’s the only place that gets any that the wind brings in, so there aren’t that many chestnuts to go around. Secondly, it’s never just one cockatoo. They travel around in packs of twenty or more, eating pretty much anything in their path. They’ll pick the seeds out of every lemon on the lemon tree, eat your wooden balcony railing and even gnaw on your actual house if they decide they’ve got a taste for it. Oh, and if you ever make the mistake of trying to handle one, they’ll have a pretty good go at biting one of your fingers off.
