MODERN DINOSAURS Australia is sometimes called the land of parrots because we have so many varieties of these wonderful birds,

and because it is thought they evolved here. Even in suburban areas, where there may be just one, lonely gum tree in flower, it can be filled with the chatter of rainbow lorikeets, sipping the nectar with the brush-like tips of their tongues. These noisy, aggressive little birds are amongst my favourites. After I learnt that birds are descended from dinosaurs, I chuckle every time I see one of these cheeky creatures, since they walk exactly like the re-creations of dinosaurs Ive seen on television. Brightly coloured, theyll chase away other parrots from bird feeders in the garden, except for the big sulphur-crested white cockatoos.

I live in on the outer fringes of Melbourne, near a large expanse of forest, so there are plenty of cockatoos, as well as other parrots. When I first moved here, my sister, who lives in the town of Cockatoo, some twenty-five kilometres away, warned me not to feed them. This was because cockatoos have the habit of tearing small branches and strips of bark from trees, hunting for grubs to eat and to trim their beaks and probably just for fun. The wood of a house, however, will do just as well! As a result, I didnt put out birdseed for any of the parrots, and so rarely saw them, except in the distance and except for a family of rosellas nesting in my garden, quite close to the house. Rosellas and other parrots normally nest in the hollows of old trees, but the pair in my garden had worked out how to build a nest of twigs in amongst the close-growing upper branches of some large shrubs bordering the property. Out of consideration, I never weeded in there because I didnt want to disturb them, and so it all looked rather messy and wildbut the rosellas kept breeding, year after year. In the meantime, and soon after I moved into my old house, with its half-acre garden full of large trees and natural grasses, I discovered the kookaburras. At first I only heard them cackling loudly just before sunrise every morning, but one sunny day, when I had taken my lunch out to the verandah, I met one. My lunch consisted of two open sandwiches, which I put on the verandah table before going inside to fetch something to read. When I returned, there was a kookaburra with one of my sandwiches, neatly skewered on its beak! Amazed, but also amused, I took it back and the bird flew off. Not long afterwards, a pair arrived outside the kitchen window, perching on the verandah railing to stare at me. I knew kookaburras ate meat, so went out with a few scraps of bacon rind and put them on the railing. They ate it with relish, clearly wanting more. I began to collect meat scraps for them, instead of giving them to my cats, and before long I had a family of seven birds, sometimes lined up along the railing and other times perched in a cluster on the television aerial. I soon found out they were quite happy to eat pieces of meat if I held it out to them, being careful to keep my fingers out of the way of their huge beaks, although not always successfully. Ouch! Eventually, feeding the kookaburras with chopped up raw chicken necks became a daily routine and I learned to recognise each individual bird, either by small differences in their appearance or by 2

their behaviour. They were all called Bert: Little Bert, Scatty Bert, Sleepy Bert, Brown Bert, Young Bert, Batty Bert (who liked flying at my kitchen window) and Big Bert. After some years, the younger birds would leave, and eventually so did the two older birds, presumably when they reached the end of their lives. Sleepy Bert now became the father of the family, and Brown Bert the mother. I miss Little Bert because I developed a special relationship with him when he broke his beak. Kookaburras cant walk very well, only hop, so swoop to catch their food or dig for it with their beaks. This skill takes quite some time to develop, and the birds often have accidents in the meantime. One day, I went outside to feed the family and Little Bert arrived, looking completely freaked out, with a large part of the upper beak tip missing; I could see its bloody interior! I held out a small piece of softer meat, thinking that if only I could keep him fed, he might survive. Every day he came and every day ate some meat, and eventually his beak healed, growing back to almost normal size. I cant tell you how relieved I was! Since then, Ive seen some of them with small pieces broken from the tip of their beaks, but fortunately, never as badly as Little Berts. After I retired in 2006, a family of parrots turned up outside the kitchen window, asking for food. Not knowing a great deal about these birds, I didnt recognise them, and so didnt know what they ate. I tried everything I had on hand in the kitchen: dates, walnuts, rolled oats, lettuce, apple and pear. The answer was, No, no, no, no! The adult bird was quite large, with tomato red and bright green plumage, while the others seemed to be youngsters and mostly a darker green. I told a young man who was doing some work for me around the house about the birds, and, being a local, he said, Ah, theyre King Parrots. They eat seed, and you can buy some from the supermarket. Apparently the father bird, which is what the adult turned out to be, was bringing his young family around to see if I could be charmed into feeding them. Well, charmed I was, and charmed I remain. I did indeed buy seed from the supermarket five kilograms of birdseed, and the answer this time was, Yes, yes, yes, yes! Now, when I hear their call, which sounds rather like the squeak of a childs swing, I quickly go out with some seed. They would happily let me hand-feed them, but Im not

sure its wise for them to be too tame, so put the seed into bowls, placed into wire baskets hanging from a large ash tree near the house. Of course, when I started putting out seed, other parrots turned up, including the wonderful rainbow lorikeets, the rosellas, andthe cockatoos. Incredibly beautiful, with what seems to be an amazing sense of fun, these large birds usually live in flocks. I had often seen and heard the flock of two dozen or so cockatoos flying around the valley and sometimes saw them perched in amongst the trees in my garden. Now, I saw them up close. When they arrived, all the other birds fled, even the kookaburras. At first, I watched, wondering what they would do, but the amount of seed they went through was too much for me, and the noise is unbelievable. Their screech, when in a flock, is deafening. The final decision came, though, when I watched them sit idly on the verandah railing after eating their fillwatched them tear chunks out of the wood! That was enough, and since then I reluctantly chase them away. At least the other, smaller parrots have a chance to eat and my house isnt destroyed in the process although the verandah is decorated on a daily basis with the end result, so to speak, of the seed. There is one exception, however, to this ban on cockatoos. In the spring of 2012, I noticed a youngster clambering around the base of the ash tree, clearly unable to fly, although he could leap from this tree to another one and then to a nearby birdbath to drink the water. Concerned, I placed a bowl of sunflower seeds on the ground, where he soon found them. I then left him for the evening, and next morning he returned, now able to fly. Strangely enough, he was accompanied by another bird, who, by their behaviour, I guessed might be his mother. She stayed with him for three days, then left, and rarely returned, whereas Henry, as I named him, soon learnt to perch on the verandah gate, waiting to be fed. He even wanted to be hand-fed, which I did for a short while, before placing his bowl of seed onto the verandah, near the house and away from the bowls in the tree, hoping he wouldnt interfere with the other parrots. Fortunately, he hardly ever did, and neither did he chew the wooden railings or play havoc with the ash tree. The following spring, Henry returned, but this time, a small flock of other cockatoos returned as well, although Henry wanted nothing to 4

do with them, and even seemed frightened of them. The flock commenced tearing the ash tree apart and screeching so loudly the other birds were frightened away. Since then, Ive had a small war with the cockatoos, trying in turn to frighten them, but with limited success. Meanwhile, Henry, the odd bird out, continues, in his sweetnatured way, to visit most days for his treats and to be told just what a beautiful bird he is: he seems to enjoy our short conversations.

Inge Meldgaard 2014