I’ve written about Yellow-Tailed Black Cockatoos before, and, no doubt, I’ll write about them again. How could I not? I know they’re the favourite birds of many of you and for good reason. The brownish black plumage, the cheek patch and the long tail both imprinted with a vibrant yellow flash. But what is it about these birds that makes them so special? For me, it’s the eerie call and how that is linked to early childhood memories and we all understand how those things tumble and turn in our brain and deep down in our core.

I mean, memories are strange. Probably because brains are weird with their wiring and rewiring and bits that light up or get sick and die. It’s so strange though that a smell or a place or a taste or a sound can take you back to an unrelated moment in time. The first hint of their mournful cry and I am back, tucked up in bed, the sun still up, the light bleeding in around my blinds, my sleep cycle unsettled by daylight savings. I am back in the smallish town where I grew up before it turned into a mini-metropolis with a Woolies and fast food joints and a couple of schools and before the cows and the horses leave and are replaced by houses.

I am back there while those beautiful black cockatoos fly their slow flight overhead. I can’t see them. I don’t even think that I even know what they look like at this point. But I definitely know that call. I have no real idea how old I am as I lay listening to those birds. I am four. I am six. I am nine. 

And a few days ago, as soon as I heard those wailing cries, even though they were in the distance, I caught myself dropping what I was doing. It was as if some muscle memory kicked in and I had to find them. Around here, they love to snack on the seeds of the banksia, dropping big chunks messily on the ground beneath them and dig into the bark of trees with their strong beaks, to get to the wood borer beetle larvae hidden. So I put my head down, followed the calls as best I could and looked for discarded bark and banksias on the path. And finally, I came across two beautiful cockies. One sitting at the top of a dead tree, acting as sentry and calling and then cooing more quietly. The other, a male (adult males have a pink eye ring) flew noisily up and out of the brush on the ground, a banksia firmly held in its beak.

I stood and just watched, kind of in awe, if you can be in awe of something you’ve seen over and over again. Sure, they’re beautiful in a majestic sort of way and yes, they are intrinsically linked to my childhood. But there’s something else, something I can’t put my finger on.

These birds just have some hold over me that I’ll never be able to explain. And that’s okay. I know a lot of you feel the same way too.