Flaming galahs


Galahs are everywhere. The air is congested with their shrill, disturbing squawking, and when you walk through the park, you need to be careful not to step on the slower of the flock as they waddle across the grass in search of seed.

There's a serious design fault to the construction of galahs; a problem with their centre of gravity. When the bird takes a step, it leans to one side - but its mass lags behind, so that the next step will always begin before the first foot has taken the majority of the weight. It moves like a confused pendulum.

One evening, I sat and watched a galah at the top of a tree, at the very highest point where a few stray branches stretched up out of the hulk of the trunk. It balanced on the tip of that branch; on a twig that was so small, the bird could only grasp it with a single digit of its cumbersome claw. It swayed and bobbed like a buoy in a storm. Every few seconds it would beat its wings violently to avoid falling from the petite perch.

White galahs are so prevalent they blanket the cricket oval like snow. They dwarf the more attractive pink and grey galahs with both numbers and decibels. They fly awkwardly and wander precariously from one end of the park to the other, filling the sky with strange cries like strangling noises. There are so many that they are now considered a pest. It’s a shame that such an interesting, absurd creature can become common enough to be a nuisance.

No comments:

Post a Comment