the joys of nature (part II)

Pop quiz!

This morning I was woken (or should that be awoken?) at 5:30am by:
(a) the sweet and pleasant melodic stylings of a pair of magpies, filtering peacefully and tunefully through my window, or
(b) the raucous screechings of a pair of psychotic pink galahs, sharing their domestic woes with the neighbourhood from the neighbour's palm tree.

.....

If you answered (a), you are WRONG! wrong, wroNG, WRONG! To the bottom of the class with you! Did you not pick up on the sarcastic tone of the title? Should I have put inverted commas around the word "joys"? If, however, you answered (b), you are absolutely, one-hundred percent on the money! And a good morning to you too!

So yes, this morning a couple of pink galahs decided to act like, well, like a pair of galahs! I have never heard such hideous screechings emitted by pink galahs. At first, as I lay groggily in bed, I wondered if it was a cranky possum. You see, I could hear the local mickey bird mafia taking offence to some poor critter stumbling into their territory, and as I've experienced their treatment of possums before, this seemed a definite possibility. But as the ruckus continued, I decided it had to be some kind of bird. I could also hear a few rainbow lorikeets combining their piercing squawks with the mickey bird mafia, which is not a common occurrence.

So! I dragged myself up to a sitting position and opened my blind, and there in the neighbour's palm tree, level with my eyeline, saw two pink galahs. One was sitting quietly and hunched up at the time, while the other was extending its wings and repeatedly launching ear-piercing screeches at the lorikeets and mickeys flapping around. Then it would screech at the other galah, which would wake it from its stupor and make it screech right back! UGH! I watched this behaviour for a few minutes, trying to determine what the heck was going on. Was this some kind of bizarre galah mating ritual? Because I'm thinking, buddy, if that's how you attempt to win a girlie galah over, it's no wonder you're single! And if so, what did the other birds have to do with proceedings?

Knowing this was too blogworthy a moment to pass up, I jumped out of bed to grab my camera. Alas, the galahs, damn 'em, decided to fly away just as I returned to the window to snap their picture! No photographic evidence! It's probably just as well though, because if I had snapped a picture, you'd probably look at it and react with "aww, look at the pretty pink birdies!", which is not the sentiment I'm aiming for here.

As Alf Stewart* would say.. flamin' galahs!

*Far be it from me to willingly quote Home and Away characters, but Alf Stewart is an institution unto himself. There's even a T-shirt!

-----