![]() During these sessions I retreated to the balcony but if she saw me through the window she would try to get at me through the glass. That was the end of her flights from arm to arm because if she saw me while she was free in the flat, her pupils would narrow and she would then launch herself at me. That went on for many weeks until one night when I was wearing a white shirt she flew and attacked me with beak and claws. It seemed healthy but after a few days developed all the signs of psittacosis and died.ĭidgeridoo was so tame that every evening she would fly between us the whole length of the flat time after time, landing on an outstretched arm with a whoop and a bow. A colleague, hearing of the batch of birds at the shop, bought one of the others. Female Yellow-crested Cockatoo (probably C.s.occidentalis)Įnjoying a shower while hanging over Conduit Road in Hong Kong ![]() But how did this apparently young bird hatched in Indonesia come to speak Australian English? Did she learn it in Indonesia from Aussies living there or was she returned to the bird shop by an Australian family leaving Hong Kong and then put in with a batch of newly imported birds?ĭidgeridoo. There was only one name for her: Didgeridoo. She constantly informed the world to ‘git out of the way’. This new, lively and apparently tame bird started to speak-in a broad Australian accent. But he would only do this if there were no human males in the vicinity.Ī few weeks later there was a small batch of cockatoos in the bird shop and another, this time a female with a yellow crest, was installed in the flat. Over a period of months my wife persuaded him to move slowly along the perch towards her and eventually to put his head down for a scratch around the crest. At first, when approached, he would shuffle to the furthest point on his perch and slightly open his beak. He must have been in captivity for some time because he had a ring and broken swivel on one leg which after a few weeks we removed with the aid of a large towel, heavy gauntlets and two pairs of pliers. Polythene, judging by his beak and legs, appeared to be an older bird. Photograph taken very shortly after his arrival-hence the frayed feathers Male Citron-crested Cockatoo on our balcony in Hong Kong. His crest was not yellow but a fetching shade of apricot orange. Given the full name of Polly-Ethylene and the short name of Polythene, he was a Citron-crested Cockatoo from Sumba, then as now considered a sub-species of the Yellow-crested Cockatoo ( C.s.citrinocristata). The price even without haggling was ludicrously cheap and soon he was sitting on the balcony of our flat overlooking the university compound. He (it is easy to sex this species-the males have black eyes, the females hazel-brown to red) sat calmly alone in a cage. Li Yuen Street East (but it may have been West) right in Central had a bird shop and shortly after our arrival we saw a single cockatoo housed in a standard parrot cage. In the 1960s the birds shops of Hong Kong had not been brought together to form a bird market. They were once so common that in the 1960s they arrived for the pet and avicultural trade in Hong Kong in batches of tens if not hundreds for many months each year-and we learnt by experience that parrots are totally, completely and absolutely unsuitable as pets. sulphurea has become critically endangered. We have found it difficult to believe that C. But we did not see one, nor hear one either because the cry, once heard, is never forgotten. Although not a birding trip we could have been lucky, particularly on Rinca and Komodo, and seen what is now called by the nitwits who try to impose a common name, the Yellow-crested Cockatoo ( Cacatua sulphurea) but which was always known as the Lesser Sulphur-crested Cockatoo*. We had hoped to see a particular species of bird on an expedition cruise last September through the Lesser Sunda islands of East Timor and Indonesia. This is the first of a series of articles on this once common but now critically-endangered species from the islands of Indonesia east of Wallace’s Line and of Timor Leste.
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