Tag: Little Corrella

Still at Lake Gillawarna, Georges Hall, and still speculating on love-affairs amongst the birdlife.

There are so many references on the interweb to Corellas sliding down slippery tin pitched roofs to fly back to the top and do it again, or else cling precariously to the vertical blades of windmills and spin round and round, that we begin to wonder if these tales are apocryphal.
One thing is certain: Little Corellas are famously playful – perhaps more so than any other Australian parrot.
So is this goofy wrestling just play, or part of the courtship behavior?

Corellas tend to flock together in fairly large groups – and this play-wrestle / submissive surrender / courtship was occurring between multiple pairs:

Non-wrestling tenderness was also on the cards. Hard not to imagine that this couple in a tree were deeply smitten:

Other Corellas in this sprawling flock were simply going about their business…

…but we reckon that love was definitely in the air this day:

Riding the Parramatta Valley Cycleway (the new Escarpment Boardwalk section had just been opened) we came upon this scene of devastation just past Lennox Bridge. A tree (Camphor Laurel we think) had been decimated, almost as though there had been a localised hailstorm:

Looking up, the culprits were revealed: a large flock of Little Corellas (Cacatua sanguinea).

They were feasting on the small blue berries, but seemed incapable of plucking off a berry without also lopping off twigs of five or six leaves at the same time. As we watched, twigs, leaves and berries rained down on us incessantly.

This youngster obliged, posing for some photos

With a lot of noise, they periodically flew off, circled, and returned to their banquet tree.