Corellas are similar to Sulphur-crested Cockatoos but whereas Sulphur-crested cockatoos dementedly shriek and cajole, corellas deliver a quavering, uncertain, two-part call that seems to ask a question rather than make a demand.

Corellas resort to a screech only when they’re agitated. They also lack the imposing headgear of their showier cousins.

Until recently, we thought we had them nailed, thought we could say with absolute certainty, ‘Yep, that’s a corella’. Except now I’ve discovered there are two types of corella around here. That’ll teach me to idly flick through the Simpson & Day Field Guide to the Birds of Australia.

The main contender for our local corella is the Long-billed variety, distinguished by its long, upper mandible (beak), bluish skin around the eye, pink splashes on the throat and the side of the breast, and a light yellow wash on its underwings.

The Little Corella has all of the above, except it has a shorter upper mandible and no pink on its breast, or cere (bird-watcher talk meaning ‘the bare, wax-like or fleshy structure at the base of the upper beak, containing the nostrils’).

On our early-morning walk – our latest attempt to fend off atrophy – we encountered a large flock of corellas grazing in a paddock. I crept up to the fence, camera aimed. In twitcher talk, I’d be classified as ‘a dude’. (Hopefully, you’ll manage to decipher this post’s headline with that link.) 

Two or three Galahs had joined the flock and after wheeling dizzily in a dazzling display of aerial acrobatics, they all settled in trees to resume grazing as they happily chattered to each other.

Mating pairs of Long-billed Corellas make nests in eucalypt hollows, lined with decayed wood, where they both incubate the eggs and care for the chicks. In the world of the corella, the division of labour is never an issue.

After painstaking scrutiny of the photographic evidence (none too clear for that sort of thing), I can attest with absolute certainty that the corellas we saw this morning were the Long-billed variety… I think.