Feeding the flock: Wild cockatoos and their Facebook friends

Wildlife is persisting in urban areas of Australia even though white settler colonialism has resulted in the large-scale destruction of forested landscapes. While many bird species are in decline, the Sulphur-crested Cockatoo has found emergent opportunities for flourishing within the built environment. Cockatoos are actively generating relationally constituted spaces, drawing humans into urban ecosystems that are ‘more-than-human’ places, abundant and lively multispecies communities. Beginning in 2011, yellow tags attached to the wings of cockatoos, along with a smart-phone app and a Facebook page, have enabled scientists to collect data about these birds’ movements. These tracking technologies were quickly co-opted by an emergent public for their own purposes, including speculating about the personalities, relationships, intentions, and desires of individual birds. Interspecies friendships formed between humans and birds – involving shared understandings, emotional resonances, ongoing social exchanges, and utilitarian arrangements. We used the wingtags and the associated digital infrastructure as an opportunity to experiment with new modes of collaborative research and teaching in multispecies ethnography. Bringing together a flock of academics and students, we explored emergent social spaces involving people and birds. While many participants who fed the birds worried that they would become tame, we found multispecies flocks were fleeting associations where wild and unruly behaviours redoubled as people offered up food. We found that wildness emerged in intimate encounters with other species, encounters that were often characterised by shared but unequal vulnerabilities. Some cockatoos have been killed, after conflicts over property damage led authorities to identify them as nuisance animals. Against the backdrop of asymmetrical risks, we studied flocks of birds as models of, and models for, fleeting forms of association and collaboration. In these spaces, feelings of interspecies attraction quickly alternated with agitated and uncomfortable experiences. Amid animated encounters, people explored the ethics of inclusivity and conviviality.