Saturday, October 01, 2011

Carl Barron beware: cockatoos watch your walk




IMAGE: No, it's not Carl with a crest. Cockatoo picture by courtesy of a fellow blogger with the site, Little Australia, which is well worth a visit.

REDLAND seems more like a rainforest than a city in the recent Lost & Found columns. Our feathered friends of many breeds are on the move.
Lost: a green ringneck parrot at Birkdale and a rosella and a rainbow lorikeet at Alexandra Hills.
Found: a grey cockatiel and a "pretty parrot", both at Capalaba.
And that was just in Tuesday's paper. Bird watchers undoubtedly have looked forward to today's chapter of Lost & Found with bated breath, keen anticipation and sweaty palms.

A LOT of emotion runs through this soapie but there's also some good old belly-shaking slapstick comedy, which comes free with each bird.
If comedian Carl Barron ever needs a stand-in, a sulphur-crested cockie could imitate that famous walk and probably get a few more laughs.
Alexandra Hills carpenter Chris Shumack managed to smile yesterday even as he counted the cost of advertising for his rosella – and rewarding the finders – three times in about two years.
"He has become a very expensive bird," Chris said. But he was thankful the tactic previously worked, and this time he was optimistic of a reunion soon with Fatso.
"He's the biggest, heaviest, overweight bird I have ever seen – he's totally food driven," Chris said.
"We bought him from a bird show at Cleveland a few years ago and we had him inside the house.
"We had hoped to domesticate him and get him trained, but he would attack you for food and then again after he got the food.
"He was very, very aggressive and never very friendly but he could talk a bit: if you turned up with food he would say 'hello'."

FATSO escaped from the cage he shares with a rainbow lorikeet, after the installation of a new perch caused a momentary lapse in security.
He is no stranger to doing it tough on the streets and has been accused of bullying innocent householders, demanding food.
Chris said the yellow and blue bird had a distinctive red spot on his neck.
Nearby at Birkdale, Steve Speechley was also hanging onto hope that his green ringneck, Arthur, would turn up, about a fortnight after his escape. He said the bird, which could say 'Arthur', meant a lot to him.

STEVE, who works in property maintenance, said there was a simple explanation for the spate of lost birds: "It's the breeding season – they go missing about September every year."

Thanks for joining me to meet the people in the marvellous community of classified advertising – and their feathered friends; this column has appeared in The Redland Times.

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