Two cockatoos canoodling on the strands of a wire fence. Canoodling seems the right word to describe the male gently preening the plumes of his mate, running his beak through the feathers of her neck, tugging at spent and loose ones and watching them float to the ground.
Although it is early evening there is still enough light for a little cockie bonding before the birds retreat to a high roost in gums in the foothills of kunanyi/Mt Wellington.
Two cockies on the strands of a wire fence, seemingly as far removed from the human world as you can get, but all the same this is tender behaviour humans can relate to. I feel an affinity with them, a connection. It might explain why humans in general love birds, especially our parrots which seem to mimic human behaviour in song and deed like no other living creature.
I knew the sulphur-crested cockatoos were a pair. The male stood slightly taller, more upright that his partner, although it was hard to make out the lighter, red-brown colour of his mate’s eye. The male cockatoo’s is black. A conversation seemed to be taking place, muted mutterings a far cry from the cockies’ more familiar screeching.
As I watched the pair, I wondered what might be the subject of conversation, how the day had gone, perhaps a worry about their young reared during this breeding season, now on the wing, out in the great wide and potentially dangerous world.
For the citizen scientist there are dangers in anthropomorphism – giving birds and animals human characteristics – but sometimes it is irresistible. The very fact we do this is an acknowledgement that birds especially are a constant part of human lives, forming a backdrop to our daily routines. Not only that, they share our love of song and, likewise, use music as a language to communicate with their young.
The sight of two cockies canoodling on a fence comes with the realisation that although they are closer to dinosaurs than humankind, their own daily lives strangely mirror our own. It’s about getting by, day by day, and taking the rough with the smooth.
What’s good for birds is good for humans but in recent times this interaction has thrown up another dimension. We have learned, if slowly, the demise of birds might foretell our own. What harms birds, like chemical poisoning and a loss of biodiversity, will ultimately harm us.
Bird populations worldwide are crashing as never before, for many reasons which include not just poisoning by pesticides, but land-clearing and over-hunting.
Today the latest global research into bird numbers tells us only 30 per cent of all birds are truly wild; the other 70 percent are mostly poultry chickens.
The metaphor of the canary in the coalmine, warning miners of the dangers of methane, springs to mind. It seems to be coming home to roost.