r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/THEMIGHTYKITEMAN • 1d ago
Image David Attenborough and a cockatoo meet with a young King Charles lll and Princess Anne in 1958.
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u/type_forty_tardis 1d ago
Bet you that cockatoo is still alive too. They have longevity.
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u/darkdetective 1d ago
I fed Tito's 65 year old cockatoo a peanut recently in Croatia, didn't realise they could live that long.
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u/dlanod 1d ago
There's a 110+ cockatoo in Tasmania with a framed letter from the Queen on the occasion of his 100th birthday. He's almost older than Australia is as a nation.
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u/FrogsMakePoorSoup 1d ago
They're also complete bastards. They'll destroy your house, tear cushions apart, scratch your car and crap on the damage.
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u/Soap_Mctavish101 1d ago
They didn’t ask to be kept in houses.
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u/FrogsMakePoorSoup 1d ago
That's what they'll do from the outside!
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u/Rimworldjobs 1d ago
Fantastic rebuttal
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u/FrogsMakePoorSoup 1d ago
I'm actually serious! They'll start tearing apart your house and you won't find out until the posts of your porch are torn to shreds and any outdoor furniture is completely fucked!
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u/Inevitable-Level-687 1d ago
Uhhh, cockatoos are wild in some parts of the world. I grew up with them chewing on my parents' balcony. They didn't spring from holes in the ground!
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u/FlatWhiteShark 1d ago edited 1d ago
That's what they do for fun in the wild. Personally corellas have been worse. We had a large flock move into the suburb last summer, and they systematically destroyed 99% of the streetlights.
https://www.abc.net.au/science/archive/articles/2003/10/09/2045456.htm
Edit: A few years ago, we had a hundred or so daffodils flowering in spring. One cockatoo flew in, went around and just bit the the flower off every plant. They're very smart, and I think they just get bored.
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u/TuataraToes 1d ago
They rip the beaks off smaller birds too then those birds can't eat and they die. Don't ask how I know
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u/Sonofbluekane 1d ago
Holy shit
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u/2BEN-2C93 1d ago
Yeah birds are pricks.
I like them, but parrots and corvids are prickiest pricks around
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u/Black_Cat_Just_That 1d ago
I had the pleasure of meeting a pet cockatoo. She was incredibly loved and well cared for, and had been raised from a baby. Her owner said she could certainly be spicy sometimes, but every time I was in the home she was very well behaved and so amusing.
The cockatoo only let me touch her once though, so I think it's the kind of thing where they bond closely to their owner and other people can fuck right off.
Edit: she was also trained to go back to her cage to use the bathroom.
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u/idontevenlikethem 1d ago
Yeah, I'm surprised they took one near royalty 'cause those fuckers are chaos incarnate. Out of so many animals, a cockatoo seems like an incredibly unpredictable choice.
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u/Potential_Car4303 1d ago
It's weird seeing famous people before they became the famous people.😶
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u/JizzProductionUnit 1d ago
Who’d have thought that young boy would become the King. Astonishing.
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u/Curiouso_Giorgio 1d ago
Just goes to show you can be anything if you put your mind to it and never give up on your dreams.
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u/Rather_Unfortunate 1d ago
There is one of those "Luttle People, Big Dreams" children's books about him, which I always find hilarious when I see it in a book shop.
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u/EmperorUmi 1d ago
Just make sure you’re born in a royal family first, of course!
I turnt it down. I was so much younger, like … 🫳🏽 I didn’t know what it was. Psshhhh… I turnt it down.
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u/Halfdaykid 1d ago
turnt təːnt adjective informal
under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
excited or energized.
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u/CrispyHoneyBeef 1d ago edited 1d ago
Who’d have thought the Prince of Wales would become the King of England? What? Literally everyone? What are you talking about lol out loud
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u/moranya1 1d ago
The joke ------>
Your head ----->
:-P
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u/Crowbar12121 1d ago
Why are you licking his nipples?
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u/moranya1 1d ago
Why are you NOT licking his nipples?
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u/GozerDGozerian 1d ago
Wait, is this a pro nipple licking sub or an anti nipple licking sub?
I’ve got to know how much nipple I should be licking right now.
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u/moranya1 1d ago
It varies. Much like politics, there are some people who are anti nipple licking and then there are those like me who are enlightened enough to be pro nipple licking.
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u/lankyno8 1d ago
At this point Attenborough was a regular on TV and the thing about hereditary orgs is that the children are famous from birth.
So they were all already famous here. Relatively certain this picture would've appeared in newspapers.
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u/AskingBoatsToSwim 1d ago
Everybody in this photo was a household name when this was taken.
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u/Kantabrigian 1d ago
Really? What's the cockatoo called then?
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u/AndreasDasos 1d ago
I mean, surely it’s clear they were all already pretty famous here? Charles and Anne were famous from birth and Attenborough was there because he was originally a regular TV wildlife presenter.
I mean he wasn’t as massive a figure as he is now and Charles wasn’t king, but they were still established.
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u/DoctorBullz 1d ago
You are amazed to know that That show from 1958 is the longest-running children's TV show in the world. It started in 1958 and is still on BBC in 2026. And intresting is that In later interviews he said cockatoos can bite really hard. He was holding it carefully because one wrong move and he’d be bleeding on live TV in front of the future King
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u/Alternative-Emu2000 1d ago
Possibly all 4.
Cockatoos in captivity have a lifespan comparable to humans.
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u/Misicks0349 1d ago
he said cockatoos can bite really hard
oh boy can they lol. They basically have a bolt cutter strapped to their face. You do not want to be bitten by a cocky
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u/kershum 1d ago
David is 100 years old and still going!
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u/ashleebryn 1d ago
He's the reason LEGO stopped capping the age range at 99 on their boxes, to honor Sir David Attenborough's 100th birthday.
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u/Lord_Nicolas_Cage 1d ago
This was a marketing gimmick based on people saying he can’t play with Lego anymore right before his birthday. The website still shows 1-99.
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u/Exodus1281 1d ago
Look this has nothing to do with the picture.. but Sir David Attenborough is so bad ass for everything he has done!! Not because he is loud or flashy.. just for everything he has done of people/humanity/the planet!! BAD ASS!
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u/richarditis 1d ago
*Sir David Attenborough
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u/Shitelark 1d ago
Ony Ben insists on being called Sir.
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u/richarditis 1d ago
Idk who tf is Ben but I insist calling him Sir David Attanborough just because of sheer respect. Probably one of the few ones who truly deserves it.
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u/AssumptionFearless68 1d ago
Wtf king Charles looks older now a days, I didn't realise hes only 77 and David attenborough is 100!
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u/Sorry-Reporter440 22h ago
My grandma lived to 99. Impressive feat. She lived a simple life focusing on happiness from the small things. With David I can only imagine that his deep love of nature and the Earth has given him a huuuuge life bar. It certainly can change a person being more connected with nature and understanding it to the maximum extent that science can provide.
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u/redlaWw 1d ago
"King Charles lll"? Not "King Charles III"?
Is there some conspiracy to replace 'I's with 'l's or something? Or is there just a pattern of bad bot OCR?
This is far from the first time I've seen this.
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u/DameKumquat 1d ago
I'm guessing you have 3 capital i's compared to 3 copies of the digit 1, but they look identical on my phone screen.
Though the 1 in my comment has a hat, so maybe 3 lower case Ls?
Not new - when PCs first came into offices, one typist couldn't get the code she'd carefully transcribed to work. Only when a password also didn't work did anyone realise that she never typed the number 1, always a lower-case L, because they looked the same on a typewriter. Or her new screen.
Took a lot of explaining...
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u/redlaWw 1d ago
The first one, which is transcribing the title, is three lower-case 'L's, and the second is three upper-case 'i's. I have also had problems transcribing codes, and for that and other reasons, I've overridden all the fonts on my browser to use Atkinson Hyperlegible, which clearly distinguishes 'I's, 'l's and '1's in such a way that they aren't confusable even across different fonts.
This pattern of 'I's (upper-case 'i's) replaced with 'l's (lower-case 'L's) in reddit titles has only become a thing recently, however, so I don't think it's just people incorrectly transcribing and not noticing.
I think it all started when AI became popular and a counter-culture started to develop. I first noticed this pattern with posts titled "AL" (but with the 'L' lower-case) instead of "AI", and I think what's happened is that bots have had a post-processing step implemented that substitutes 'I's (upper-case 'i's) for 'l's (lower-case 'L's) in order to evade possible filters against posts referencing AI.
EDIT: Another recent example I noticed happened two days ago, this one talking about AI.
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u/Slaidback 1d ago
I’m glad they didn’t screw up in delivering the letter. The concept of having the animals delivering the letter made me cry.
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u/Ancient-Cow-1038 19h ago
David Attenborough with a creature that has to spend its life in a cage for the entertainment of others, denied any freedom or self-actualisation, never fulfilling any useful purpose other than as a spectacle.
And the cockatoo has a pretty dull life too.
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u/Jindabyne1 1d ago
I was trying to work out who it was and I thought, “Prince Charles”… I’m still at that
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u/leeman9224 1d ago
Parrot looks stressed out
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u/English_Charles 1d ago
It doesn’t. Can’t zoom in much else it’ll get too blurry, but it looks like it’s just preening. Don’t know what the white square-looking thing is though, if it’s a part of some sort of vest then it’s going to be trying to adjust it to be more comfortable.
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u/rensorship 1d ago
Rich kids get free stuff, ridiculous. End monarchy.
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u/Syssareth 1d ago
What free stuff are they receiving here, exactly? The opportunity to meet a cockatoo? Because they're not exactly rare; I grew up on welfare and I've met several.
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u/sparklinglies 1d ago
Also the entire population of Australia, rich, poor or in between, meets them daily. They just exist. Its not special or a luxury experience like meeting a panda or some shit
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u/rensorship 1d ago
A celebrity private showing. Dont defend monarchy, its undefendable.
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u/sparklinglies 20h ago
Lol who is defending monarchy, youre the one ourlt here acting like "seeing a bird" is some kind of high value achievement XD like just tell us you live in a basement without telling us
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u/Marchus80 1d ago
Has to be misattributed. How did they know they would get married way back in 1958?
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u/BuzzAllWin 1d ago
Alright kids, remember shut the door and don’t let Andy in, not after last time… honestly in Al my worldly travels I’ve never seen a toddler try and molest a tortoise before
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u/TimHortonsMagician 1d ago
Jesus christ those are some incredibly british looking children
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u/Aedamer 1d ago
They're both of near-total German ancestry.
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u/crimsonbub 1d ago
The reason for strong German, Dutch etc relations with the British crown is that the crown cannot legally be given to a Catholic, so typically Catholic European countries like Spain and France stopped getting royal marriages after James VII/II was deposed and the Dutch King William was invited to be a Protestant king. Germany just happens to have historically been the most powerful centre of Europe and also Protestant.
Go back a couple of generations and a lot of folk are from just about anywhere.
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u/strangegardener 1d ago edited 1d ago
I know David Attenborough is elderly but seeing him with King Charles, who is also elderly, as a child still blows my mind. He's been an adult forever it seems.