Bart Bear's Blog

You have to be careful about one thing when you visit Hamilton Island. Some of the birds are thieves and very quick and sneaky thieves at that. You can't leave anything lying about in the open or the birds grab it. They even come inside to snitch things if you forget to close doors when you go out. We had a couple of regular hopefuls whenever we spent time on our balcony. As soon as the door opened these guys would appear and try to look absolutely starved. The kookaburra would get the message as soon as Dad shooed him away, but the cockatoo was much more cunning. He would pretend to fly off, but only go as far as the first branch that was out of sight. Then he would wait until he heard something interesting, like a chip packet being opened, and he was back. Of course they are not starving. Hamilton Island has lots of rainforest areas full of natural food for critters and it is really bad for the birds to eat much people-type food. But they are probably like me (and the Oldies, although they would never admit it) and much prefer "naughty" food like chips, peanuts, ice-cream and hamburgers to "healthy" stuff.

Labels: birds, Hamilton Is, Queensland