PS Cottier

Palm cockatoo

Heads like a child's drawing of bird heads,
huge beak and feather mane, flopping, 
last extant beat-poet, croaking of things
hep and cool.  Man, you hit bedrock
on that arching drum, selecting the sticks
that give the deepest echo, sound playing
through that tall wooden amplifier,
from dark roots to hazy blowing sky.
You contemplate the waving tops
of tropical trees, plumed angel-head,
stylish in your deep black daytime rhythm.
Inimitable pulsing punctuation,
beaky accent perched above
the forest's bright green flow.

PS Cottier

(Image copyright Birdwatching Tropical Australia)

I have posted this poem before, many years ago, however I just saw Palm Cockatoos in the flesh (or feather) for the first time up in Cape York. The male uses sticks to drum on hollow trees, something possibly unique among non-human creatures. (Although we do tend not to see, or hear, things that other species do.) My left shoulder boasts a tattoo of a Palm cockatoo; over ten years since that was inked I saw one.

The photo is of the one we got a good look at; I also saw a couple in flight. We saw Golden-shouldered parrots on the way up, an equally special bird that nests in termite mounds. It is unfortunately one of Australia’s most endangered birds.

The next bird I really want to see is more common. The budgie (the wild one) has always evaded me. I’d love to see a large flock of them in the wild. Occasionally one is seen in Canberra, but they are escapees from aviaries, given away by size and colour, probably wondering where all the seed went.