in sudden blur of white flashed wings, the furious and the fast, the shrieking cockatoo, attitude and punk my garden is completely taken over by the rowdy crew. it's not just the cacophony but the way they line up on my balcony, their brazen command of the environment as they discover the bird seed i put out this morning and begin to wreck the joint. soon there are hundreds of them swooping down, these are big birds, bright fluro and proud. they squawk and even the other birds quit the garden.
i walk out amongst them, strange man in black surrounded by white wings and yellow flash of mowhawk. they don't seem to mind me, i notice more on the roof, there must be 50 of them up there and 30 down on the balcony. 
i see the bowl is where i left it, balanced precariously on a fern tree as a large king cockatoo ploughs his way through exotic seed. he must be the main bird of this flock. he's not stopping to look at me, his beak is deep in seed. 
a few moments later there's a new energy in the air, things here come to an end and the birds fly away. 
it's an australian moment.