An avian friend to follow them around and join in games in the garden, making mud pies, having teddy bear tea parties, playing dress-ups or collecting treasures in the bush. The best friend a little girl could haveĪs a kid, I didn't realise that not every little girl had their own bird to talk to. We think he found it hilarious, and he made sure to only ever do it when Dad and I were around to "enjoy" it too. Mum fed Claude every day, and even made him cups of tea. He would climb onto my arm totally satisfied with himself. Her yelling and running footsteps would echo through the house, her only option for retreat to leap into the bath, leaving Claude to stalk up and down the length of the tub.Īnd like a cheeky child pleading innocence, as soon as we ran to the rescue, Claude would immediately change his tune.Īll of a sudden, he was upbeat, chattering away and bobbing his head up and down like he was laughing. "That bloody bird is out again," she would scream. To my mum's dismay - the reason for which will soon become evident - Claude surpassed his prognosis five times over, living a very loud and proud life.Ĭlaude's thundering screeching and shouts of: "HELLOOOOO CLAUUDDDDE" made up the alarm-like soundtrack of our already noisy household for a quarter of a century. The vet gave Claude a prognosis of two to five years, and said many birds with this disease are euthanased, but Claude had other ideas. There are records of healthy cockatoos living to 80 years and beyond, but in the wild, beak and feather disease can dramatically shorten a bird's lifespan by preventing them from accessing enough food and making them vulnerable to predators. (As for Radar, he remained, fittingly, off the radar forever.) A very cheeky cockie He couldn't go back into the wild, so he happily became Clawedy Claude Jones. His flight feathers had fallen out and he would never fly again. "Well, we have to keep him now, Mum," one of my siblings said.Ī visit to the vet confirmed he was a wild young'n who had become a "runner" because of his beak and feather disease. They can be locally very numerous, leading to them sometimes being considered pests. But it wasn't Radar.įeeling terrible for the homeless bird and charmed by his character, Dad let him cruise home with us. The sulphur-crested cockatoo ( Cacatua galerita) is a relatively large white cockatoo found in wooded habitats in Australia, New Guinea, and some of the islands of Indonesia. The young cockatoo had more cheek than you could poke a stick at and seemed only too keen to hop into the car.
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