Lamb Island isn't just a wonderful place for humans to live in peace and contentment, it's also an officially-declared bird sanctuary. And the birds make the most of it, especially this sulphur-crested cockatoo, who announces his/her arrival with a 'squark' that translates loosely as "Seed in the feeder, please, and now!" and then waits expectantly for us to deliver. At our house, we've been well-trained to also feed kookaburras, butcher birds, magpies, spangled drongos, curlews, rainbow lorikeets, galahs, cockateels and doves. Most of them, we suspect, simply include us in their daily rounds of visits to different houses where they've trained other suckers.
Other birds around the island who get along quite nicely without having to lower themselves to mixing with us humans include wood ducks. white ibis, herons, cormorants, pelicans, plovers (masked lapwings), friarbirds and various tiny finches. There's also a breeding pair of ospreys (sea hawks) with a huge decades-old nest high up in a tree on the north-eastern shore of the island from which they patrol the bay indulging their appetites for fresh seafood.
