I love how nature can be completely bonkers!
Some time ago Michael and I were out and about in the car when we saw some Sulphur-crested Cockatoos in distress.
It seemed they’d got tangled up in some cables hanging over the road.
They were dangling from their feet, flapping their wings furiously and making one heck of a racket.
We pulled over having no idea how we could help or free them…
Only to see them all suddenly fly off…
Totally fine.
Not at all in any trouble.
They were playing!
It was a huge relief, but extraordinary to witness.
Not so long ago I was working at home when I became aware of a strange noise.
I was busy so ignored it…
For a while.
I was pretty sure it was Kookaburras…
We have a lot of them around.
But this was an unusual sound… even for them!
Not their usual laughter…
I ignored it again.
But it continued.
Finally I stopped what I was doing…
Looked up and said out loud what is that noise?
I got up and went outside.
First I had to establish where the noise was coming from…
At the back of the house…
In the bush somewhere.
Then try to spot the bird(s)…
A flap of wings and I saw it…
It seemed to be hanging from its beak…
I couldn’t quite work it out.
So I grabbed the binoculars…
It was behind some branches so still hard to see…
As I was still recovering from foot surgery, I wasn’t game to start scrambling through the native bush around us…
So I couldn’t get close enough to take a photo…
But as I watched it carefully…
It became clear it was hanging on to something with its beak…
The rest of its body and its little feet just dangling there…
Slowly spinning around.
And making a weird, sort of gutteral sound…
What the…?
Then suddenly it let go and flew into a tree.
Seconds later another Kookaburra flew to the exact same spot and did the same…
Hanging and spinning from its beak.
This went on for quite some time… with a number of them taking it in turns to try to get whatever it was…
I was absolutely captivated.
Then finally, they all stopped… had a good old laugh, and flew off.
Apparently it’s a thing.
I found this page that clearly shows a similar thing.
Although that involved two Kookaburras in a sort of tug-of-war…
This short video shows it quite well…
Again, slightly different to what I saw as they weren’t hanging from another Kookaburra, but you get the idea.
I have no idea what it was they were trying to get…
But boy it did well to hold on for so long…
And as far as I could see, they never got it!
Amazing.
If I hadn’t stopped.
Listened…
And followed my curiosity I would have missed it all.
Another reason why every day we should take a few minutes to practice mindfulness…
Stop.
Take the time to look around…
Take notice…
And be aware of what is going on around us.
You never know what you might find…
Ann 🙏