Don’t let the coy looks fool you

While on my daily reconnoitre looking for the most recent roosting place of the local Powerful Owl (Ninox strenua), I was assailed by a shower of falling pine cones and branches. Perched in the trees high above me was a ‘squadron’ of Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos (Calyptorhynchus funereus) doing what they do best – destroying vegetation. Don’t let the coy look of the Cockatoo on the right fool you. Minutes before this photo was taken, the truncated branch on which it is perched wasn’t so truncated. Their powerful beaks can easily grind through pine cones and two-centimetre-thick branches. Long known as harbingers of rain the only thing raining on this day was pine debris.