So...I noticed a cockatoo alighting on my roof (as opposed to alighting from a train - one of the very few other situations in which one can alight - see notices at Woolstonecraft station) and beginning to nibble on my grey plastic gutterguard. This mesh keeps leaves out of the gutters (eavestroughs) which is handy when you have a rather loose schedule for cleaning out whatever is up there and a rainwater tank which collects it. Before I had the gutterguard put on, I even had a tree growing in one of the gutters at the front. With gutterguard, if there is a tree growing up there, it’s having to crawl along on its knees under the mesh so I don’t see it which is the same as it not being there. And I can assume there’s water in my rainwater tank as opposed to seedlings, frogs, leaves, twigs, worms, (fat ones) and the local newspaper (the delivery guy drives down the road with all of his windows open and pelts the rolled paper out either side of the car...my house is downhill).

But I digress.

So...I waved my arms through the window but it ignored me, after throwing a brief sardonic glance in my direction. Of course, I could be mistaken. It is notoriously easy to confuse the sardonic cockatoo with the ironic. And the glance was brief. Actually, have you ever noticed how descriptions of birds in field guides include the colour of their eyebrows? True. Check it out yourself at the library. I mean, I’m sure I’ve never even noticed a bird’s eyebrows as it flits past...

Anyway,...

...I burst out through the back door which startled it into the tree maybe three metres away, it alighted (alit?), turned to face me, and settled down infuriatingly unperturbed in the face of my flailing arms and assertive body language. I picked up a (tiny) twig (OK, so I haven’t swept the back verandah for awhile) and threw it, knowing that the cockatoo would be startled at my throwing actions and the projectile and would rapidly decide against chilling at my place. It yawned. OK buster, so now I’ll pull out the big guns. A gumnut. By throwing gumnuts I’m deterring a hooligan and reforesting the bush at the same time. Two birds with...

So I pelted the gumnut, and as we both watched, it bell curved balletically skywards towards the next door neighbour’s house, then ran out of gas and plipped to the ground somewhere amongst the violets short of its target by about 2 metres.

The cockatoo looked at me. I’m positive I saw it lift an eyebrow.

How humiliating. As I did my scary stuff and pelted projectiles, at no point had it indicated that it took me in the least seriously. I wasn’t trying to hit it you understand, just be respected as a potential threat.

I withdrew.

It sat there all afternoon. I’m guessing it was thinking things over and perhaps even coming to an appreciation of my angst. However, it is notoriously easy to confuse the contrite cockatoo with one who is laughing.