Birds, birds, and more birds

We have so many birds in the trees around where we live and every morning you wake up from the birds. Birds were never something I paid much attention to before coming to Australia. I mean in my hometown we had seagulls making a racket of course. They also stole my nephew's glasses when he was at the beach. He wasn't wearing them but still, it is pretty cheeky and it was very hard for my sister to get the insurance company to understand. Then there was that canary that followed me into the house in France one day when I was gardening and stayed with us for eight weeks but that was exceptional.

No, the birds here are something else. The big white ones are called cockatoos and have a yellow crest on the head. Apparently they also come in black but I have never seen them. They get into everything. Sometimes when you are driving around you see big groups of them and they almost look as if someone has thrown out a bunch of old, white shopping bags. They can grab food with their claws and put it in their mouths in an almost dainty fashion.

Then we have the kookaburras. They make a very funny, almost cackling sound. Sometimes at barbecues they have been known to swoop down and grab things from the barbecue.

Black swan at Lakes Entrance, Victoria

There are others whose names I don't know, some are very colorful and beautiful. Oh, I almost forgot, there are penguins too, and pelicans, and guess what? The swans are black!

Some birds sound like a baby crying, and some sound very nice. When you wake up in the morning it is always to the birds, and in the beginning it was a nuisance but it is growing on me, especially since when I was young I read a book that warned us that birds would all die out because of humans polluting the planet. So I am grateful that it hasn't happened but sometimes when you want to sleep in and they start up .....

Here is a link to bird sounds of Australia.