Corellas

LONG BILLED AND LITTLE CORELLAS

Kilmore has a love / hate relationship with corellas. Long Billed corellas,  Cacatua tenuirostris and the Little Corella, Cacatua sabguinea, are frequent visitors to the Kilmore Golf Course.

They spend early morning and evenings digging up the fairways and greens to feed upon the roots, bulbs and corms of the grasses. They congregate in large flocks and cause much damage to the course.

However when they are not feeding and  destroying the links, they provide wonderful entertainment to those of us who visit the areas around golf club.

In the mornings and evenings their calls are ear piercingly loud. They have a wonderful time swooping around the reservoir lake as they make their way to the tall trees for the night. We find it a wonderful concert  as we walk each evening.

In the morning, they reverse the procedures, beginning their day with raucous and resonant calls as they swoop around and around the water. My daughter complains constantly of the noise waking her far too early.

At the moment we seem to have flocks of both the Long Billed and the Little Corella. The long billed have distinctive pink bibs on their chests and a beak which is long and fierce looking. The beaks are, I am sure, specially designed by natural selection for digging up country golf courses.