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Hi Birders,
While I have had no experience with
drunken Sulphur-crested Cockatoos, when I was the NPWS Manager in Coonabarabran
in the late 1970s, one Christmas, when the backyard apricot trees had fruit ripe
to pick, we had a lot of rain over a three day period. The apricots split with
all the moisture and started to ferment on the tree. Musk Lorikeets came into
the town to feed on the apricots. Many Lorikeets gorged themselves on the
fermenting apricots and fell to the ground dis-orientated (drunk?). A few people
collected them and put them in cages, like one man had 11 Musk Lorikeets, with
the object of selling them. The birds were soon OK by the following day. My
contacts in the town dobbed some of these "citizens" in and I went around to
talk to them and managed to persuade those citizens to release the birds under
threat of prosecution. All birds were released that I know of. This situation
only occurred once during my stay of 8 years in Coonabarabran.
Alan Morris
Birding NSW Records
Officer.
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