Sulphur-crested cockatoo landing on my front fence (Nikon D3000)

Hello people. This sulphur-crested cockatoo was around for a few days. I think this could be an old bird. It could not fly up on to the fence, yet had no trouble coasting a fair distance away from off the fence. It slept on the ground out front of the house over two nights, tucked in among elm tree suckers, and I was really worried about it. It had no visible signs of injury and its feathers look healthy enough. I wanted to cage it to keep it safe from cats and foxes but I think it knew how to hide itself and it might have been too cruel to lock it up. It also had a fairly threatening squawk.

walking

It used my three fishpond tiers to drag itself up on to the fence!  That is why it is wet and muddy under its beak. One morning it was squawking in our ivy, on the ground, and later I see it had climbed up into the lilac tree (first photo above) It didn’t seem to see me, so perhaps it has poor peripheral vision. From there, it flew into the neighbour’s yard, where it called down a flock of cockatoos to keep it company.

looking for seed

One day I saw it sitting under the rose bushes in front of the house across the road. Maybe it used the drainage pipe to go under the road. I’ve seen no squashed bird or pile of feathers to show it has met a bad end. It came back to our side the next day.

Sitting

It sunned itself on the fence for most of the day. I like to think its flight feathers were growing back after a moult and it is now happily flying about. One feather does look a bit dodgy in a few of the photos.

Thanks for reading. You have a great day!     :)