Most rural properties don't like cockies. I don't mind them in that their noise doesn't bother me and so far they have not been interested in olives.

Down the road is a walnut farm. Or was. The endless complaints from suburban neighbours got to him in the end, and the property is now unmanaged. One of the complaints was about the gas cannon that kept the cockies moving. As a result of him ceasing to operate, a huge flock of cockies has moved in. They used to be seasonal, coming in as the walnuts were ripening. Now though, with no one moving them on, they are local all the time. As a result we have them here often, when the pickings are there.

We nursed three avocado trees from infancy to adult size. For three years we wrapped and unwrapped them every night to protect them from the cold. Now they are fully sized and shrug off an overnight frost, and a few years ago amazed us with dozens of avocadoes. But now we have cockies, and they pull the avocadoes to bits long before they are ready. We get nothing now.

Two big brazil nut trees. Again, same thing....we got a couple of good crops and now the cockies take them all. In the olive grove are a couple of big walnut trees. we don't get many, because you have to spray and spray walnuts relentlessly. We minimally spray, especially the fungicides you need for walnuts, so we don't get much anyway. The black mould doesn't stop the cockies...they take them all. Figs, cherries....

(Interestingly, when the yellow-tailed black cockatoos travel through the white cockatoos disappear. Unfortunately, the black cockatoos are happy to crack macadamias, so we lose all of them!)

So you would think I would have a grudge against the cokatoos. It is annoying, but this week something interesting happened. Late winter, as you might expect, there isn't much around for huge flocks of cockies. But everyday I see them out in the paddocks, working the grass.

"What are they doing? They don't eat grass..."

What they are doing is pulling nutgrass out of the ground and eating the bulb. But even more interesting, they also pull juvenile Cape Weed out of the ground and eat that bulb. Both plants die off as a result, leaving room for more livestock-palatable grasses.


Uprooted nutgrass and cape weed

Because there is so many of them they cover a big area. They don't get everything, unfortunately, and they do not tackle the fully mature cape weed sites. But better than me doing it, and no sprays required!

Go cockies, go!