No bird soars too high...

One of my favorite things: how history is often preserved, hidden in unlikely places, if only we can find and uncover it.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-44610271

The BBC story shows two pictures of the cockatoo from the manuscript, and says there are four.

I wouldn't have thought a cocky would be much chop for hunting - maybe the sultan gave it away because he couldn't stand the screeching.

>4 binders: - I wouldn't have thought a cocky would be much chop for hunting ...

They might be good eating, so ...

I've never tried one, but the famous recipe for cocky soup is to get a cocky, then bring it to the boil with a stone in the pot. once the stone is soft, throw out the cocky and eat the stone.

The author points out that cockatoos make the R sound better than other birds, and that's what it sounds like when they scream/screech - ARRRRRRR!

This article suggests that the discovery of this bird in a 13th century manuscript is such that medieval trade routes might have to be rethought. But this is may not be as groundbreaking as it seems since Janet L. Abu-Lughold convincingly argued some years back in her book Before European Hegemony that a rich semi-global trade network existed during this time period. Furthermore, she showed how the Malacca strait was an important nexus point in this trade network. Note that this is close enough to the Australasian habitat of this bird such that knowledge of its existence being transferred to Europe could have been easily accomplished. (Even so it's quite possible knowledge of the bird had been mediated to Europe by regions more proximate to it.) If nothing else perhaps it serves as a bit of empirical evidence to support Abu-Lughold's thesis.