The caffeine from the first potent mouthful of coffee was beginning to fight back against my heavy eyelids. After 17 hours of flying, I had finally arrived in Australia. Now, within an hour of landing, I was photographing a small group of Sulphur-crested Cockatoos.
My flight touched down at 6 am. It was the first flight to land in Sydney that morning, so I cleared customs quickly and went straight to the hotel. My room wouldn’t be ready for a few hours, so I dropped my bags and pulled out my camera. The sun had just risen, so it was a great time to find Sydney’s abundant wildlife. The Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens were a short walk from the hotel and, from my years of living in Sydney, I knew I would find birds galore. The Gardens didn’t disappoint!
If you’re not Australian I don’t think you can ever get used to seeing large white parrots in the city center. I wasn’t a blogger when I lived in Australia, so I hadn’t taken the time to photograph them properly. Now I was here for work and had a few hours free to take as many photos as I could. The Sulphur-crested cockatoo was my prime target.
My heart quickened when I spotted a small group of cockatoos pacing around the trunk of a tree. I slowly made my way towards them and crouched to set my coffee down and lifted my camera up. A cockatoo tilted it’s head and studied me with one beady eye. One, two, three camera clicks, but the light was poor and the bird had started to move. It was moving in my direction. It strutted towards me and in doing so rendered my long-range 500 mm lens useless. I shuffled back and snapped in time to catch the friendly parrot picking up a seed in its left hand and nibbling the nutty treat with that iron beak. It is usual for cockatoos to be left-handed. Perhaps another reason for me to identify with them.
The cockatoos took flight in search of their next meal. I decided to leave the Gardens and make the short walk to the headland where, Mrs. Macquarie’s Chair looks over the mind-mindbogglingly beautiful harbour. I had seen cockatoos nesting here in the past, but I wasn’t sure that it would be the right time of year. It wasn’t long before a cockatoo landed in a Eucalyptus tree and shuffled along the branch towards a large hole in the trunk. It’s mate landed just above, and dragged herself up the trunk using her beak, to explore another hole. This bird was Lily (057), a participant in the citizen science Wingtags project.
It isn’t uncommon to see cockatoos around Sydney wearing plastic yellow tags on the shoulder. Wingtags was started to assess the movement and behaviours of urban cockatoo populations. Some of the data provided by the citizen sightings is fascinating. Lily (057) has been reported 229 times in the 7 years between July 2012 and July 2019. Over half of these sighting occurred on the same plot of land where I took these photographs, and almost all the sightings occurred within a mile radius of this point. I had imagined long journeys into the Australian bush, but these birds are too beautiful not to be showing themselves off around town .
I made my way back into the Botanic Gardens. The Australian sun was pounding down and wilting all beneath her. As I followed the winding path towards the Opera House I heard a familiar squawk. A flock of cockatoos had landed in a group of pine trees. Barracuda (051) and Watermelon (011) stayed in the trees, feasting on young pine cones, while acting as lookout.
The other half of the flock swooped down to the ground and started plucking at grass, nibbling down to the root. I crouched down beside them. They were not in the least bit concerned by my presence, and indeed came to within a few inches of my camera.
Most of the time the magnificent sulphur-coloured crest from which this species gets its name remains concealed as nothing more than a yellow feather swirl. The best time to see the crest in full fan position is in the seconds after the bird lands. For a few fleeting moments the crest is erected, as a flag to announce the cockatoos arrival, as they stoop drunkenly in to a wobbling stagger before regaining composure.
I left the cockatoos to their breakfast and walked out of the Botanic Gardens. I should have been going back to the hotel to sleep, but when you have little time and a lot of wildlife there is no time for sleeping. My next targets would involve a short taxi ride to Centennial Parklands.
I lived in Sydney for 3 fantastic years. In that time I must have seen hundreds of cockatoos. It wasn’t uncommon to be woken up by a raucous bunch on the roof at first light. But each time I see them it is the same excitement as the first time. Why, because they make me happy. Australia is old and the climate is fierce. European settlers brought underground water to the surface and provided an abundance of grain and fruit to this arid land. This abundance has seen the parrots of Australia thrive, and none more so than this beautiful, comical urban marauder; the Sulphur Crested Cockatoo.
If you are in or are visiting Australia you can get involved with Wingtags by following the link
Join the conversation below. Have you seen cockatoos in Sydney? Have you taken part in the Wingtags project? 👇👇👇
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Categories: Australia
incidental naturalist 
Incredible pics! Thanks for sharing.
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Thank you! 🙏😊
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The article and the pictures are simply superb. 🙂
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Thank you so much for the kind words! 🙏😊
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You are welcome 🙂
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Wonderful photos.
“If you’re not Australian I don’t think you can ever get used to seeing large white parrots in the city center.”
Even if you *are* Australian you never get used to them. Well I never have, and although I’ve lived in Canada for many years, every visit back home I’m just as enthralled as ever with the wildlife, and thrilled that I can hear various birds and know what to go looking in the trees for, and then share it with my Brit husband.
My Aussie home town is Canberra where there is a great abundance of wildlife in the city, but there is no Wingtag there so I have umpteen photos of cockys without tags. They never cease to amuse me.
Yeah – the flight is brutal.
Alison
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Hi Alison, I’m happy to hear that as an Aussie you still get a thrill out of seeing Australian wildlife. It seems like we have walked similar paths. I’m a Brit with a Canadian wife who used to live in Australia. 😊
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Welcome to Australia. Soon you’ll be muttering ‘Bloody pests’ whenever you see cockatoos. They can be destructive to crops and dominate nesting sites that might be used by other parrots, so are not universally loved.
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I’m certainly aware that the cockatoo is not a universal friend and many who live in the suburbs have an uneasy relationship with them.
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Hi David,
Great pictures. We were at the Sydney botanic gardens last year in February. It must have been a lot cooler for you. We also liked the Ibis tidying up everywhere. Steve
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Thanks Steve! Stay posted, at some stage I’ll write a blog about those Ibis. Another bird that I never got used to seeing in the city!
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I really love cockatoos. I think they are the most human oriented of the parrots and the most like us in the way they think. they certainly recognise individual people and can even call them by name, although they are not fond of repeating silly phrases.
For a while I had neighbours that bred parotids. I was having tea with them one day when they brought a baby cockatoo out for a walk round the room. I could hardly take my eyes off it, and it seemed to reciprocate, because while we were talking it crept up, and under the long skirt I was wearing and settled down on my foot. I so longed to walk outwith it! I wish I could have afforded it.
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They are beautiful creatures. Even the wild birds are very comfortable with human interactions. Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to leave a comment. 😊
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Gorgeous photos, talk about a close-up! I visited Sydney ages ago, but don’t remember seeing any cockatoos. Your photos make up for it though!
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Thank you! 🙏 I have to give the cockatoos full credit for the close-ups! They were almost climbing in my camera 😃
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I love your pictures! Thank you so much for sharing these with us.
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Thanks for the kind words! 🙏😊
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I’ve never been to Australia and didn’t realize they had this sort of urban wildlife. I hope you managed to catch a few winks your first day. Lovely photos and story.
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Sydney is a great city for urban birding. The parks are a treasure trove and the seabirds off the coast are majestic. I eventually slept until it was time to go searching for parrots again 😊 thanks for the kind comment, Eilene 🙏
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“) Love your line, “..because they make me happy.” Sure creates a lot of our art, research, learning, sharing, and passion in life – and this great blog you create and share, David, thank you! Always learn from your work =)
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Thank you for the kind words, Lara! It is true that a little happiness can go a very long way. Nature can be a great source of happiness for all of us if we treasure it. 🙂
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More than true, David! Thank you for helping with that reminder =) Looking forward to your next installment :)) Cheers –
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I know they are wild, but with so many as pets, I forget that not all are in captivity, great post and pics!
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Yeah I know what you mean Tony. You kind of think of these birds as pets which makes seeing flocks of them even more surprising and wonderful.
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You may have had it but I missed it, how long is the average life span in the wild
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They move for about 30 years in the wild. I think they live for much longer in captivity. Maybe 50+ years
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How amazing to be able to view these magnificent in their natural habitat where they belong, and not in cages as they are kept here! You have captured these birds so beautifully!
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Thank you, Cindy! It is hard to appreciate them in a cage once you’ve seen them flying free.
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