I have pulled my calf muscle at the gym... agaaiinnn, sigh, so with both running and calcio practice not possible I decided to go out to do a wide angled photoshoot of sunrise over the Bellambi rock pool with the boat ramp in the background. At least I'd get some walking exercise in and knock an item off my photo checklist.

Mmm. I did get the shots as I had visualised them. They looked pretty ordinary. Really ordinary. Like, "well, that's cr@p..." ordinary. I therefore hoofed it up to Bellambi lagoon to do some shots with the golden light of sunrise. Some of them weren't bad. But the one that I'm using here was completely unplanned. I noticed these three in a tree as I was walking down the path and thankfully, at that point, I had swapped to the 40-150 lens.

I present to you three examples of the Pink and Grey Cockatoo, or Rose Breasted Cockatoo, more commonly known in Australia as... the Galah. About 35cm in length and 300 grams in weight, they generally live for about 20 years in the wild until or unless taken out by predators or accidents, though in captivity they've been able to make it out to 72 years.

Their noises and tendency to fly into things have given them an unfortunate reputation and in old Australian (let's say, 1930s to 1950s) the term "galah" has come to mean a stupid or foolish person. As in "Stone the flamin' crows, Palmer, stop being such a flaimin' galah!"

The expression has been popularised in certain parts of the world by the export of an Australian soap opera called Home And Away, and in particular through the character of one Mr. Alfred ("Alf") Stewart who regularly uses it. Indeed, if Arnie has his "I'll be back" catchphrase, Alf has his "flamin' galah" catchphrase, especially when directed at game show host Larry Emdur.

(Not so much breaking the 4th wall as shattering it, the actor who plays Alf, Ray Meagher, and his network colleague Larry Emdur are reputed to be two of the nicest guys on TV. So naturally in station promos they're portrayed as having an unexplained blood feud. Which is, I have to admit, funny as all getout. "Ray", says Larry coldly and menacingly. "Larry", replies Ray in kind.)

In reality if the term "galah" is used unironically or non-jocularly by any Australian these days then (a) the speaker is unlikely to be under the age of 60 (Ray and his character Alf are both 80... yes, 80 and he's still working on a 5 episode a week series, I kid you not), and (b) they're unlikely to be living in a non-farming township. The term will probably die out eventually, but not today.

This is also true of galahs themselves, which are not at all endangered in part they can be found throughout most of Australia aside from far north Queensland or the hotter deserts.

It's unfortunate that I'm (self-)limited to one shot per day. In the frame immediately before this, matey on the right had his beak stuck under his wing feathers preening. Were you to know that, his expression here looks like he wants to remind himself to get some more deodorant.