Autumn. My favourite time of year.
The beautiful, golden days, warm enough to do things but not too hot to do them. The cooler nights, so you sleep better. The leaves turning.
The birds.
The parrots, which arrive around now and move on in a month or so.
The corellas (white cockatoos) that swarm around the area, their deafening screech making it hard to hear anything else as they swirl overhead. The love the big shopping centre near us. They also love the trees. The whole flock will swoop down onto a single tree—Moreton Bay figs, or the liquid ambers—in the evening to feed. They strip the tree. In the morning you arrive out to a carpet of discarded seed parts all around the tree.
The corellas, of course, have screamed on to the next tree.
The collective nouns for cockatoos are a family, a chattering, or a crackle.
I like a crackle. It’s rather apt.