Calyptorhynchus funereus
Every so often a flock of Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos drifts noisily over Melbourne’s inner northern suburbs, and it’s as if a host of benign phantoms has been roused from some ancient remnant forest to remind the city of the bushland it had once been.
Australia has an abundance of parrots, with about fifty native species, and of the parrots the largest and most uniquely Australian species are the Cockatoos (Cacatuidae). As with any group of animals they’ve suffered mixed fortunes: the Galah (Eolophus roseicapilla) and, more recently, the Little Corella (Cacatua sanguinea) have taken advantage of inland clearing and the spread of grain farming to increase their distribution into regions and habitats where once, within living memory, they were never seen; the Sulphur-crested Cockatoo (Cacatua galerita) is so common in some cities as to be considered a pest due to its cheerfully destructive habits. On the other hand, inland clearing has led to the decline in numbers of Major Mitchell’s Cockatoo (Lophochroa leadbeateri) and the bird is now regarded as vulnerable in Victoria. When I was a child and my family used to drive across Victoria to get from Canberra to Adelaide every other Christmas, the “Major Mitchell” was more legend than bird: my father spoke of having seen one once, but no matter how many hours I stared out the car window nor how many years I hoped for a glimpse I never saw one, and with its pale pink feathers and extraordinary red and yellow crest it’s among the most vivid of all my imagined animals.
The Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo is neither threatened nor uncommon, but it generally stays out of urban areas so it’s not often seen. In Canberra a feature of getting out of the city and into the surrounding bush is that the likelihood of seeing a flock of black cockatoos drastically increases. I was astonished the first time I ever saw them in Melbourne: I heard the distinctive long, wailing calls of a flock approaching and I went rushing out of my house to see the birds flying overhead in their characteristic slow, heavy manner. I watched them until they disappeared over the houses opposite, though I could hear them long after that.
It’s possible that we’re seeing more black cockatoos in Melbourne now because so much of their habitat was destroyed in the awful Black Saturday bushfires of 2009. As with Galahs and Corellas moving into cities, the delight we naturally take in the appearance of unexpected animal life in our midst can too easily obscure from us the terrible environmental destruction that has facilitated, or necessitated, the movement of those animals into urban environments. Whether it’s the inland clearing that’s favoured the grain-eating, open-country living Galahs and Corellas, or the incineration of thousands of square kilometres of bush, those of us who live in a big city are insulated from the cause: we only see the effect, the arrival of new species into our midst – and it’s all too easy to imagine those new arrivals as symptomatic of the greening of our urban areas, the adding of another, richer layer of life on top of the less glamorous if more familiar urban species.
When I first saw black cockatoos in Melbourne I was living in North Carlton. I live in Clifton Hill now, and my house is near Merri Creek, a long waterway which drains Melbourne’s northern suburbs and which also acts as a wildlife corridor. The creek has a long history of human use: before Europeans arrived the indigenous Wurundjeri people lived along its banks. About a ten minute walk from my house there’s the site of what was apparently one of the earliest Aboriginal schools in the state, established in 1846. Though there’s no evidence of the building remaining, the stand of thin eucalypts nestled on a patch of soil above the creek there, just before the bike path curves round underneath the Eastern Freeway, gives some small impression of what the area might once have looked like.
Melbourne’s a young city, not even two hundred years old – yet it doesn’t take long for a city to acquire a history, and more than anything else I think it’s that history that gives a place its richness. The house I live in now is an old weatherboard house, and though it’s been renovated and repainted and is now filled with my belongings the fact remains that it was built about a hundred years ago, and generations of people have been in it before me, have run to its front gate when they’ve been caught in an unexpected downpour, have listened to the hooting of Southern Boobook Owls (Ninox novaeseelandiae) floating up from the trees by the creek on still spring nights, have shared meals or felt lonely or been bedridden or regretted not leaving the house for a night out. People have lived here before me – and they will after me, too, of course they will. I’m just renting this house but it’s not mine in a much more real sense than that.
All this history is still here to be seen, and to be felt. The truth is that no matter how much gentrification occurs in a suburb, no matter how far the demographics shift, no matter how much change comes over a place, it’s never entirely a matter of displacement. For the first year I lived in Melbourne, I was in the heart of Fitzroy. Fitzroy was once the poorest suburb in Australia, and it’s now one of the most fashionable. I was barely there long enough to justify calling myself a local, and I wouldn’t want to live there again, but I love the place all the same; and more than anything, what I love about it is that through all the waves of new arrivals to have made Fitzroy their own over the decades – the workers, the artists and musicians, the yuppies – none has entirely displaced the other: they’re still all there, in greater or lesser numbers, all quietly suspicious of each-other but all also just getting on with life. I find it fascinating – and wonderful, too.
I was riding back from getting breakfast at a nearby bakery this morning and, on a whim, I decided to take a slight detour via the path along the creek. As I approached Rushall Station in North Fitzroy I heard the distinctive call of a Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo. I was uncertain at first: no matter how many times I see them in the inner city I never expect to see them, and more than once I’ve heard the call being imitated by the Indian Mynah (Acridotheres tristis), a bird given to occasional mimicry which was introduced to Australia and is now considered a serious threat to native birds due to its aggression in competing for tree hollows in which to nest; but then a second call joined in, and a third, until it became clear that a flock of black cockatoos was nearby. I stopped my bike, and looked, and eventually saw a few of them flying low through the trees, and thus satisfied I continued on my way. Just as I was about to turn up a side-branch of the path to climb away from the creek and head towards my house, I heard the same call again – this time coming from an acacia right on the fork of the path. I stopped dead, and saw right there by the path a huge black cockatoo feeding in the tree. Then another, and another: eventually I realised there were half a dozen or so cockatoos, not two metres away from me. I stopped and stared for a few moments, I couldn’t believe my luck – but then, worrying that my presence might send them to flight, I continued on my way. At the top of the path, beneath the railway bridge, I came across a young Aboriginal couple. The woman was singing in a beautiful voice, and she had a wide smile which revealed that she had no front teeth. Still excited by the cockatoos, and unable not to share my enthusiasm for such a rare sighting, I told the couple about the birds. “That means rain”, the man said. “Forty days and forty nights.”
The Merri Creek Aboriginal School was run by a Baptist minister. According to the plaque which is the only indication now of where it once stood, it was eventually shut down when the local Aboriginal community became concerned that the children at the school were being drawn too far away from their own culture. I know this because I walked down there this afternoon to double-check on some facts before writing this post. I had to check the rain radar online before I left: early this afternoon, some time after I’d finished my very late breakfast, the temperature plummeted, the wind picked up, and the sky cracked open with rain and hail and sleet. It was the first rain to fall around here for a little while, and the heaviest since the start of winter. After that downpour one small storm after another rolled across the city. When I arrived at the site of the old school the sky was dark and rain was starting to spit down on me as the front of another storm approached. As I hurried back home, I heard that wailing cry once more, and as always I stopped in my tracks and looked up. There they were again, so large and flying so slowly that it seemed a miracle that they stayed airborne, making their way east, back from wherever they’d spent the day, back to wherever they're making their home now.
Australia has an abundance of parrots, with about fifty native species, and of the parrots the largest and most uniquely Australian species are the Cockatoos (Cacatuidae). As with any group of animals they’ve suffered mixed fortunes: the Galah (Eolophus roseicapilla) and, more recently, the Little Corella (Cacatua sanguinea) have taken advantage of inland clearing and the spread of grain farming to increase their distribution into regions and habitats where once, within living memory, they were never seen; the Sulphur-crested Cockatoo (Cacatua galerita) is so common in some cities as to be considered a pest due to its cheerfully destructive habits. On the other hand, inland clearing has led to the decline in numbers of Major Mitchell’s Cockatoo (Lophochroa leadbeateri) and the bird is now regarded as vulnerable in Victoria. When I was a child and my family used to drive across Victoria to get from Canberra to Adelaide every other Christmas, the “Major Mitchell” was more legend than bird: my father spoke of having seen one once, but no matter how many hours I stared out the car window nor how many years I hoped for a glimpse I never saw one, and with its pale pink feathers and extraordinary red and yellow crest it’s among the most vivid of all my imagined animals.
The Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo is neither threatened nor uncommon, but it generally stays out of urban areas so it’s not often seen. In Canberra a feature of getting out of the city and into the surrounding bush is that the likelihood of seeing a flock of black cockatoos drastically increases. I was astonished the first time I ever saw them in Melbourne: I heard the distinctive long, wailing calls of a flock approaching and I went rushing out of my house to see the birds flying overhead in their characteristic slow, heavy manner. I watched them until they disappeared over the houses opposite, though I could hear them long after that.
It’s possible that we’re seeing more black cockatoos in Melbourne now because so much of their habitat was destroyed in the awful Black Saturday bushfires of 2009. As with Galahs and Corellas moving into cities, the delight we naturally take in the appearance of unexpected animal life in our midst can too easily obscure from us the terrible environmental destruction that has facilitated, or necessitated, the movement of those animals into urban environments. Whether it’s the inland clearing that’s favoured the grain-eating, open-country living Galahs and Corellas, or the incineration of thousands of square kilometres of bush, those of us who live in a big city are insulated from the cause: we only see the effect, the arrival of new species into our midst – and it’s all too easy to imagine those new arrivals as symptomatic of the greening of our urban areas, the adding of another, richer layer of life on top of the less glamorous if more familiar urban species.
When I first saw black cockatoos in Melbourne I was living in North Carlton. I live in Clifton Hill now, and my house is near Merri Creek, a long waterway which drains Melbourne’s northern suburbs and which also acts as a wildlife corridor. The creek has a long history of human use: before Europeans arrived the indigenous Wurundjeri people lived along its banks. About a ten minute walk from my house there’s the site of what was apparently one of the earliest Aboriginal schools in the state, established in 1846. Though there’s no evidence of the building remaining, the stand of thin eucalypts nestled on a patch of soil above the creek there, just before the bike path curves round underneath the Eastern Freeway, gives some small impression of what the area might once have looked like.
Melbourne’s a young city, not even two hundred years old – yet it doesn’t take long for a city to acquire a history, and more than anything else I think it’s that history that gives a place its richness. The house I live in now is an old weatherboard house, and though it’s been renovated and repainted and is now filled with my belongings the fact remains that it was built about a hundred years ago, and generations of people have been in it before me, have run to its front gate when they’ve been caught in an unexpected downpour, have listened to the hooting of Southern Boobook Owls (Ninox novaeseelandiae) floating up from the trees by the creek on still spring nights, have shared meals or felt lonely or been bedridden or regretted not leaving the house for a night out. People have lived here before me – and they will after me, too, of course they will. I’m just renting this house but it’s not mine in a much more real sense than that.
All this history is still here to be seen, and to be felt. The truth is that no matter how much gentrification occurs in a suburb, no matter how far the demographics shift, no matter how much change comes over a place, it’s never entirely a matter of displacement. For the first year I lived in Melbourne, I was in the heart of Fitzroy. Fitzroy was once the poorest suburb in Australia, and it’s now one of the most fashionable. I was barely there long enough to justify calling myself a local, and I wouldn’t want to live there again, but I love the place all the same; and more than anything, what I love about it is that through all the waves of new arrivals to have made Fitzroy their own over the decades – the workers, the artists and musicians, the yuppies – none has entirely displaced the other: they’re still all there, in greater or lesser numbers, all quietly suspicious of each-other but all also just getting on with life. I find it fascinating – and wonderful, too.
I was riding back from getting breakfast at a nearby bakery this morning and, on a whim, I decided to take a slight detour via the path along the creek. As I approached Rushall Station in North Fitzroy I heard the distinctive call of a Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo. I was uncertain at first: no matter how many times I see them in the inner city I never expect to see them, and more than once I’ve heard the call being imitated by the Indian Mynah (Acridotheres tristis), a bird given to occasional mimicry which was introduced to Australia and is now considered a serious threat to native birds due to its aggression in competing for tree hollows in which to nest; but then a second call joined in, and a third, until it became clear that a flock of black cockatoos was nearby. I stopped my bike, and looked, and eventually saw a few of them flying low through the trees, and thus satisfied I continued on my way. Just as I was about to turn up a side-branch of the path to climb away from the creek and head towards my house, I heard the same call again – this time coming from an acacia right on the fork of the path. I stopped dead, and saw right there by the path a huge black cockatoo feeding in the tree. Then another, and another: eventually I realised there were half a dozen or so cockatoos, not two metres away from me. I stopped and stared for a few moments, I couldn’t believe my luck – but then, worrying that my presence might send them to flight, I continued on my way. At the top of the path, beneath the railway bridge, I came across a young Aboriginal couple. The woman was singing in a beautiful voice, and she had a wide smile which revealed that she had no front teeth. Still excited by the cockatoos, and unable not to share my enthusiasm for such a rare sighting, I told the couple about the birds. “That means rain”, the man said. “Forty days and forty nights.”
The Merri Creek Aboriginal School was run by a Baptist minister. According to the plaque which is the only indication now of where it once stood, it was eventually shut down when the local Aboriginal community became concerned that the children at the school were being drawn too far away from their own culture. I know this because I walked down there this afternoon to double-check on some facts before writing this post. I had to check the rain radar online before I left: early this afternoon, some time after I’d finished my very late breakfast, the temperature plummeted, the wind picked up, and the sky cracked open with rain and hail and sleet. It was the first rain to fall around here for a little while, and the heaviest since the start of winter. After that downpour one small storm after another rolled across the city. When I arrived at the site of the old school the sky was dark and rain was starting to spit down on me as the front of another storm approached. As I hurried back home, I heard that wailing cry once more, and as always I stopped in my tracks and looked up. There they were again, so large and flying so slowly that it seemed a miracle that they stayed airborne, making their way east, back from wherever they’d spent the day, back to wherever they're making their home now.
Image sourced from http://en.wikipedia.org/
That's lovely Harry - I can't pick a favourite part. I feel a little bit teary.
ReplyDeleteThanks Ally! If this one made you a bit teary then you might want to get a stiff drink before reading the next one - it's going to be about the Red-capped Robin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-capped_Robin), and my grandfather.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your post Harry,it is so lovely and so informative too.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in the north-east of Victoria and didn't ever see a black cockatoo even though our land was at the base of the Strathbogies. I thus consider it a rare privilege when I have sighted them over the years, usually in another state and in state or national forest.
Imagine my surprise and absolute delight when stuck in traffic on Punt Rd last Thursday in the middle of peak hour when I spotted an odd looking black silhouette with that distinctive loping flight pattern. My eyes nearly fell out of my head and I stuck my head out the window to witness a flock of 35-40 of them screeching and wheeling about. They disappeared over the roofs of Richmond, off down Victoria St to the East. Of course I gaped about open mouthed at other drivers, desperate to share the special moment. (Unfortunately they were all stuck in traffic)
I live in Clifton Hill and have just moved to right beside the Merri and this morning I heard the distinctive cries and raced outside to see a slightly smaller flock making their (somewhat erratic) way south-west across my block and Clifton Hill.
Feeling delighted again,my thought also turned to wonder what has driven them into our less inviting human habitat.
Earlier this year I was up at Holloways beach, north of Cairns, in a beach-side cafe and I watched five Red-tailed black cockatoos for about 15 minutes as they played with the onshore wind which lifted over the palm trees about me. It was unspeakably beautiful to see them take such delight in their flight and watch their elegant play-games. They moved very differently to the ones I've seen here.
Thank you so much Harry for your piece and for sharing your knowledge and experiences.
Tamsin
Thankyou Tamsin, that's such a lovely comment to receive. The flock seems to be growing bigger - a month or two ago I was riding to Richmond and just before crossing the bridge over the river onto Burnley St I saw them all gathered in the eucalypts there; I don't think I'd ever seen so many black cockatoos all in one place before. It was absolutely magical and I sat dumb-struck watching them for at least ten minutes. I haven't seen or heard them in Clifton Hill for a while but I'm sure I will before too long - we're very lucky to live in this beautiful and bountiful part of Melbourne.
ReplyDelete