Black cockatoo

A black cockatoo in mum's garden a few years ago

 My father was a lifelong installer of bird baths (and also sundials - he even wrote a short treatise on the subject)

 

At the houses my parents lived in they planted shrubs and trees to attract birds. At the place they moved to in Warabrook(Newcastle) after Dad retired he put in a couple of feeders to put sunflower seeds etc to attract sulfur crested cockatoos, and to his mild chagrin, mobs of shrieking lorikeets. Mum continued with this after dad went into a nursing home.

 

There was a group of 4 yellow tailed black cockatoos who lived nearby whose almost whalelike sighing calls you could hear sometimes, and occasionally they'd visit just after dawn, but disappear as soon as they caught sight of any motion in the house.

 

During the intense drought in 2019-20 that culminated in the Black Summer fires food sources must have dried up. These big birds would visit more often and got accustomed enough to not flee immediately, visiting in eg the afternoon when I was around. They were hungry, and must have recognised there were no dangers there.

 

So I was able to set up a camera sometimes close to where they fed then take stills and videos from a bit further away with a phone. These guys are natural performers reacting to the camera lens as the AF focussed and whirred