![]() ![]() Beware the bird that plots and plays.Ĭockatoos seem to be unique birds in that they enjoy eating and playing, sometimes at the same time! Cockatoos are too intelligent to be deterred easily. ![]() ” There is no 100 per cent effective way of keeping Cockatoos out of your orchard or garden. This is a photo from The Canberra Times, which I have used before, and it shows how destructive intelligent birds can be when winter comes and there is nothing to do! The cockatoos in this tree are having a ”stand off” with a raven, eventually the raven left! The best place to view a bird is in its own natural environment. Having lived alongside Cockatoos in Canberra for many years, I can appreciate their beauty and unique personalities, and despite their destructive qualities, I am glad they are now a protected species. Somehow I am not surprised that the resilient Sulphur Crested Cockatoo had survived a long journey and was living in a totally different environment, thus playing their part in history, so very long ago. These young cockatoos were entertaining to watch Taxidermy species show birds in profile, this bird faces forward, just as a curious intelligent bird would do.įrancesco 11 Gonzaga, owner of the cockatoo would have collected exotic birds for interest and fashion, and as a signal of of worldly power and wealth. Dalton argues the bird’s appearance suggests it is drawn from life. She writes “The cockatoo’s natural pose in the painting with its crest erect, suggests it was painted from life. This journey would have taken years, but a well-cared for cockatoo regularly lives to be 60 years old and beyond.Īfter many years of research, Heather Dalton is sure that bird in the painting is alive and not copied from pages of a book. early morning anticsĪt the time Andrea Mantegna painted the Madonna della Vittoria, the bird could have been taken from eastern Indonesia, partly by water and partly overland via the Silk Road. Heather spent many years making sure she was right in thinking it was a Sulphur Crested Cockatoo. The painting shows a slender white bird with a black beak and an alert expression, and an impressive-greenish yellow crest. Recently I read a very interesting article in The New Yorker about a Renaissance painting called Madonna della Vittoria, the work of Andrea Mategna, painted in 1496, now hanging in the Louvre.Ī British born historian, Heather Dalton, lived in Melbourne while doing a doctorate at University of Melbourne, and noticed a familar looking bird in a book of Renaissance paintings. Perhaps as a result of our long Lockdowns this year, the last few months have been very busy as we return, cautiously, to normal life, new Covid variants notwithstanding. Spring has come and gone, and I had hoped to write a post on spring flowers in the garden…but it can wait. ![]()
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