Cockies are the pranksters of the bird world. They're smart and they think it's hilarious to mess with each other and anyone else. They also tear everything to pieces. So it's no surprise really that if any bird worked out how to operate a drinking fountain it'd be these hilarious little jerks.
I was visiting a place that takes in rescue animals, in this case they had a lot of birds.
In their typical speech to people about NOT keeping birds as pets they described some of the birds as "highly curious, the maturity of a human 5 year old, with an intense desire to be destructive".
My wife always joke about how parrots sound like a fun pet until you consider the phrase "Flying eternal toddlers, that cannot be diapered or potty-trained, with can-opener mouths."
On top of that, they have one tool, and it's a pair of boltcutters you can't take away. And the most clever of them have a good chance to outlive their owners.
There's one at a wildlife sanctuary in Tasmania reported to be 110 or so ("Fred", Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary). Original owner is long dead, obviously.
I aspire to one day befriend a local murder of crows. Not to keep as pets or to make dependent on me, but maybe to bribe to clean up trash or steal quarters for me... or to defend my honor should the need arise.
We had a galah chewing our hosepipe the other day. I pointed and said "oi!" and the little scamp stopped, straightened up, looked me right in the eye and ... did it again.
Oh and not to forget the kookas. I heard a pop and noise like water a few weeks ago, and ran into our living room. Outside the main window there's that hose reel mounted on the wall that was spraying freely against the glass. A kookaburra had somehow pulled the hozelock end off and was taking a shower.
I will never forget watching a kookaburra swoop down as my grandmother went to take a bite out of a bacon sandwich, and stealing a piece of bacon out of it without touching her or the bread. It then sat on a branch whacking the bacon against it to "kill it" before eating it.
Same with me, but I was camping as a kid. One took the snag out of my mates bread just as he was about to bite it. It made sure it was dead by hitting it on the tree it landed in.
It seems a standard childhood memory! I had a chicken and salad sandwich downgraded to a salad sandwich while I held it my hands as a child. Couple of decades later, almost identical thing happened to my own kid.
The most accurate representation of "Chaotic Neutral" - the cheeky bastards love stealing ANYTHING, and when there's nothing to steal they'll start ripping the rubber off your car door seals (or windshield wipers).
They are amazing birds, very deserving of the name "Clown of the Mountains".
Seagulls, magpie and ibis (im not being fun or joking here) have evolved to exhibit cooperative traits and behaviours to get food, including tricking, diverting, cooperating and most annoying literally staunching people.
I was having a burrito on manly wharf a long while back, a seagull just lands on the table and death stares me...i felt uncomfortable and moved, because i know they will try and take my food off me!
I saw an ibis and magpie work on opening a macdonalds bin, take out the black rubbish bag, tear it, splay its contents and fish for paper macdonalds bags!
When I lived in Australia we had a wooden full length porch (elevated), and where we lived in the hills outside Melbourne we could easily have 20-30 cockatoos hang out on it in the morning. They were mercifully not loud, but they absolutely destroyed the deck rails, and we had to replace them with heavier duty industrial plastic deck.
Or gangsters. We had a bird feeder, which we occasionally let run dry. A cockatoo got pissed with this, and concocted a scheme. When the feeder was empty he sat on the outside fridge and screeched. Once he got your attention, he made sure he was in full view and started destroying things . He only stopped when you put out more feed.
Amused by this I mentioned it at a neighborhood BBQ, and was greeted by a chorus of "oh yes, that happens at my place too". The guy holding the BBQ held up his BBQ tools and said: "See, brand new, this is the 3rd set". It was a neighborhood wide protection racket run by one bird.
Indeed. My father spent a lot of time bellowing at cockatoos that’d land in his fruit trees and tear them to pieces. He’d storm about and wave a broom at them until they took off. Classic old man yelling at clouds.
When he was on the other side of the house in the garage, they’d take fruit from the trees and drop them on the sloping driveway so they rolled down into the garage. Come play old fella.
