Loud and Sweet

Today we went to Red Hill Nature Park in south Canberra. The park itself was not too impressive other than its literally red soil (therefore the name Red Hill). But we didn't know there was a loud surprise waiting for us--we encountered a flock of sulfur-crested cockatoos that seemed to be in middle of a group discussion.

If you have ever heard of one of them, you will be sympathetic by now. Here are some words people used to describe their sound on the Web, "extremely loud screech", "as melodic as sheet metal being dragged across a bitumen road", and "not the most melodious birds in the Australian bush. They have a variety of calls, none of them pretty".

The last comment must be from a real gentleman. I thought I was normally easy on using negative words, but "eeyoring" was the one I picked, in other words, it sounds like a donkey. Here is a mp3 file if you want to hear it yourself (tune down your speakers first!).

Now you can imagine how it would be like if there were five or six of them, arguing with each other, which was exactly what we encountered. Luckily they were not too near and it was towards the end of their heated discussion.

After their meeting was dismissed, I managed to take bunch of close shots of the birds including the one you are seeing. They are absolutely gorgeous and look very sweet most of the time, that is, as long as they don't start talking. Some people like them so much that they even keep the bird as pets (I bet they must give away ear-plugs for free when you buy them in a pet shop). But that is a life-long commitment as such a cockatoo can live as long as 70 years!

Last but not the least the cockatoo is also said to be smart. They can be trained to imitate human voices, and they are also very playful as shown in this video.