While enjoying a coffee with friends on a recent Saturday morning in downtown Uralla, the GLEBE OF THE NORTH as I prefer to call it, I got a call from an Armidale vet. They had a Yellow tailed black Cockatoo in care. Would I take it on?

The victim of a car strike, the bird had concussion and a swelling on the shoulder but no broken bones. At lunch time the bird was handed to me and I put her in my hospital box to recover from the anaesthetic she had in order to xray her. Now the the problem began.

YT BC are not like a “normal” parrot. They do not readily eat bird seeds but need the seed of native trees like banksias, hakeas, she oaks, wattle seed and heavily rely nowadays on the cones of introduced pine trees. In addition they relish the grubs that infest wattle trees, using their bolt- cutter like beaks to tear the wood apart to extract the soft nutritious grubs. It is a drought year, the native trees are dying, the seed pods are spent, what to do to get this beautiful, wild bird to feed?

After an inspiration, I drove to some pine trees nearby and managed to collect some spent cones. I had purchased some pine nuts, almonds and macadamia nuts, all at some expense and now I proceeded to stuff them into the “scales” of the cones. I put them in the box with the bird and waited.

Towards evening I heard a clonking noise coming from the box and after dark I peeked in and saw that she had demolished one of the cones. In the morning I saw her with an almond in her feet, eating away happily. SUCCESS! Well, a start at least. Later that day I had a visit from a friend who has several species of Black cockatoo in captivity and he pointed out a stark fact. None of the aviaries I have would contain this bird should she decide to escape! Her beak is so powerful, she could easily rip her way out of the thickest standard bird wire. Another dilemma.

The prognosis was that she should recover after a few weeks of rest to allow the bruising to subside. No choice but to prevail on my friend to house her in his welded mesh, purpose built aviary to allow her to exercise and recover. So, there she is for a few weeks. She is flying now and should rejoin her flock in a week or two.

Well, yesterday another call. Another YTBC , hit by a car. Almost identical issues. This time I wasted no time in using the pine cone method and she too is feeding well. It has prompted me to start planning my own weld mesh aviary in case I get more of these beauties into care.

Black cockies are large birds but it is all feather compared to their weight. They float about in flight and in high winds, they will often fly low and slowly, sometimes across roads. This is where we interact with them. As the season worsens, they are growing hungrier and travelling to our gardens and roadsides more often so care must be taken as we drive. They are fragile creatures and hard to care for so all efforts should be made to avoid vehicle strikes with this amazing and iconic bird.

Oh, by the way, I am very sceptical of the correlation between Black Cockies and the likelihood of rain BUT, the day I brought the YTBCs into my house, both times, it rained heavily for the first time in months!!

Just saying!

By Chris Baker

Originally published in Uralla Wordsworth