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Kangaroos, Bats And Australia's Most Bedraggled Cockatoo Hide From Cyclone Debbie In Hotel Corridor

Scrawny wanna cracker?

Video Courtesy Alexis Kolsky

Kangaroos in the corridors, bats and sparrows in the atrium, Australia's most stubborn little rainbow lorikeet and the most bedraggled cockatoo we've ever seen.

These are just some of the creatures taking refuge from Cyclone Debbie any place they can.

We've nicknamed him 'Scrawny'.
Alex Kolsky
We've nicknamed him 'Scrawny'.

The hopelessly bedraggled cockatoo above was photographed by Alexis Kolsky, from Melbourne, who is on holidays on Daydream Island -- which is located just 18km northwest of Hamilton Island, and is directly in the path of Cyclone Debbie, which was just 50 km away at 10am (AEST).

"A cockatoo was found stripped of feathers," Kolsky told The Huffington Post Australia. "Guests have taken him into their room and are feeding him. He's the only one [we've seen] that is so injured."

This is not the only bird image Alexis has shared in the last 24 hours from Daydream Island.

On Monday afternoon, she posted the following tweet of a brave little rainbow lorikeet clinging doggedly to a branch at the storm approaches. Winds at the time were around 100 km/h. They're now almost double that as at midday Tuesday.

"I came for my good friend's wedding on Saturday and I can honestly say it was a perfect day," she said. Then the cyclone approached.

"Now we're all bedroom bound on the island with the cyclone. I left beautiful weather in Melbourne for this."

Kolsky is staying on the tiny island's only hotel, the Daydream Island Resort and Spa. She said the scene outside her window is chaotic, with large coconut palms torn down and air conditioners ripped off the side of buildings and crushed.

"It is so noisy, it's like when you're at the airport and you hear the planes starting to take off. We can hardly hear the safety announcements," she said.

In addition to the humans taking refuge inside the hotel, which has been built to withstand a Category 5 cyclone (and Debbie is reaching wind speeds very close to Category 5), animals have sought shelter indoors too.

"My friend has a kangaroo in her corridor as well as a couple of sparrows. There was also a bat in the atrium."

Here at The Huffington Post Australia, we wondered what animals do when a cyclone is approaching, so we put that question to Professor Simon Robson, head of zoology and ecology at James Cook University.

He told us that "they either head out of dodge or hanker down, just like humans".

"I have heard of flying foxes hanging on for dear life in the leeward side of trees as a cyclone goes through, then moving to the other side as the eye passes [winds comes from the reverse direction on the other side of a cyclone's eye].

"Storms are also likely to divert flocks of birds and bats many hundreds of miles away in front of the storm front."

We can't know for sure what's happened to "Clingy" the rainbow lorikeet (as we just named her), but fingers crossed.

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