I grew up in London and birdlife is restricted to pigeons and sparrows, nothing romantic. Of course we had a budgerigar at home, nearly everyone did: he even spoke, his name being Bill he constantly said “pretty Bill” and spent most of the day looking in his mirror and talking to himself. He would grip the mirror with his claw as it was suspended in his cage: one of my childhood memories. Today I would have a guilty conscience if I had a caged bird. I now prefer to see the birds in their natural surroundings.

In winter I have a birdhouse outside and regular customers for their bird seed. I live in a place where a river runs through it and what would a river be without a few ducks and swans. Our neighbours are magpies and a crow colony and between them they tend to have quite noisy conversations.

My No. 1 son’s boss has a cockatoo.

The name is Otto and is now about 30 years old. Otto is part of the company where my son (in the photo) works. He is quite at home in the factory and is here looking over my son’s shoulder whilst he is working on the machine.

The boss takes the cockatoo to work every day. He has a nice big cage but is usually hopping around or sitting on his owners shoulder. He is not only confined to the factory. Outside there are a few trees and now and again he makes the most of a little freedom he has. A couple of weeks ago I was passing by and met the boss outside. He said Otto is also outside if I want to take a few photos.

And there he was siting on a fence and cleaning his claw.

I know in some countries cockatoos are regular daily appearances and if you live down under in Australia they are no exception. By the way this is the cockatoo sort with the little bits of yellow under the wings. Here you only see cockatoos as pets and Otto is the only one I know.

RDP Saturday: Bird