Choosing the correct trees

I can barely hear the radio for the screeching. This is 0610am.

Mind you it is prettier and better than this.  0521am. Not a melodious song. This sulphur crested cockatoo has a cry that is a cross between a seventy fag a day crooner and a strangled goat. Taken from the vantage point of my bed.

Big bruiser of a beast. He is getting my attention by attacking the mosquito screen on my window.

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Click on these short bursts if you want a visual and aural blast of the birds.

But enough wildlife. Lets talk Parks and Wildlife. And the small error of information that has a huge impact.

All this comes from a lovely walk I had with Jan, Jan and Cynthia at Clontarf yesterday. Hello Cynthia. (Me waving)

Don’t you love it when you walk with friends who point out the bleeding obvious when you have been looking but not really seeing?

Like the flowering shrubs all over this part of Sydney. Hawthorn. Who knew?  Pink Indian hawthorn – Rhaphiolepis. I was thinking along the viburnum line. Completely wrong.

Or that the gorgeous flowering purple ground cover plant is called Pig face. I kid you not.

Most things sound better in garden Latin – Capriobrotus.

There’s even a wacky bright orange one.

But the point of this little picture story?

Always read the label. If you know Manly and Clontarf and any seaside beach in between you will admire the huge Norfolk Island pines. Tall, straight growing salt tolerant monsters.

So spare a thought for the Parks Department official who thought: ‘Nah, these New Caledonian Cook pines are fine. Same thing’.

Little did he know that they have an embarrassing tendency to …

kink.

Oops.

And on that note… I can sit here chasing the cockatoos out of the bird feeders.

I can sit on Manly beach eating calamari and chips (did that yesterday as a sneaky detour from buying compost sacks at Bunnings Hardware).

Or I could go home.