barking at corellas in a gum tree

Penny must be almost recovered from her cough, to judge by the furious barking she engaged in this afternoon. No coughing, even though it was non-stop canine yelling for ages, when a huge flock of corollas landed in a big tree in our street.

Here's one branch of the tree with a small part of the visiting group:

Eventually they took off, screaming their typical cry, flying so low that we felt as if we should duck our heads. A few stayed behind for a while, but Penny didn't think she had to bark at these slow-coaches once the main flock had left.

My neighbour tells me they like the seedpods of liquid amber trees, and I did notice they flew from the  liquid amber tree over the road to the nearer tree - a lemon-scented gum.

I'll have to keep an eye on the liquid amber while it has seeds, in the hope of seeing the lovely birds back again. (Lovely at the moment, because none of my trees have fruit. I'm sure I'd be yelling at them like Penny and trying to get rid of them if they were eating my crop.)

Here's what a seed looked like (after they tossed it down on the street):

It seems the corollas can be seen by some as quite a nuisance, and their eating of liquid amber seeds may result in the spread of this non-native tree to bushland. (Discussion here.)