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Pink cockatoos feed on Aleppo pine, ripping into the cones with dexterous claws and beaks, outside the Wyperfeld national park entrance. Photograph: Ellen Smith/The Guardian

At the entrance to Wyperfeld national park, in north-west Victoria, more than a dozen pink cockatoos are sprinkled across a hedge row of pine trees like Christmas decorations. These are Aleppo pines, not the native conifers that the birds rely on for nesting habitat and as a primary source of food.

Still, the feathered ornaments appear quite content, nestled in among the spruce and ripping into pine cones with their dexterous claws and beaks, making gentle cracking sounds that punctuate the soft roar of Mallee winds.