Yellow Tail Black Cockatoos Poem by Francis Duggan

You hear them once and the next time you will not get them wrong
The yellow tail black cockatoos familiar in their song
Weerloo weerloo you hear them sing as slowly they do fly
Big dark brown parrots larger than large crows across the evening sky,
With their powerful beaks they shred the tough pine cones and the hard hakea nuts for seed
One might say there are easier ways for to come by a feed
In a hole in an old tree they hatch their eggs two chicks just one survive
The weak one always has to die for the strong one to thrive,
The yellow tail black cockatoos are not seen everywhere
They have their range and through their range they are known to be rare
Their difference in size and appearance from other cockatoos not even hard to see
Whilst seen in some zoos they don't do well kept in captivity,
On a sunny evening in early March in the warm southern Fall
The yellow tail black cockatoos weerloo they sing and call.