The young fledglings will remain with their parents for a number of months after fledging. Incubation of their clutch of two to three eggs lasts from twenty-five to twenty-seven days, with both parents sharing incubation duties and raising the nestlings for the next nine to twelve weeks. Typically a bed of wood chips makes up their nest. This species competes with other birds for nesting sites generally in a high tree hollow. The birds typically preen each other’s feathers prior to mating. The courtship ritual includes crest raising, head bobbing, and moving the head from side to side in a figure eight pattern while uttering soft chattering sounds. In northern Australia the breeding season is from May to September, and in southern Australia from August to January. This species reaches reproductive maturity at three to four years of age and breeds once a year in Australia. They will also eat newly planted and ripening grain crops. These birds will feed on the ground and in trees, eating mainly nuts, fruits, seeds, blossoms, insects, and insect larvae. Sulpher-crested cockatoos are 18 to 20 inches tall (45 to 50 centimeters). Males have darker brown eyes and females have red tinted brown eyes. Males and females are similar in appearance. Its feathers are pale yellow under the wings and on the tail. This large white bird has a distinctive sulphur yellow-colored crest that may be erected or folded down on the top of their head. It can also be found in urban and suburban areas in parks and gardens. Sulphur-crested cockatoos live in tropical and subtropical rainforests and savanna areas. It has been introduced in New Zealand, Palau, and Singapore. This species is found in Australia, Tasmania, New Guinea, and nearby islands. The Aquarium’s sulphur-crested cockatoo Lola (a male) is one of the ambassador animals that participate in meet-and-greets at various locations around the Aquarium, including regular appearances at the Pacific Visions entrance. In fact, one centenarian cockie even got a letter from the Queen.SPECIES IN DETAIL Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo
When they do grow up, cockies can live for a long time - perhaps 40 years in the wild to over 100-odd years in captivity. But if you listen carefully you might hear them - they make a droning 'arrrrrrrr' call when they're begging for food and a quick staccato squeak when they're fed. You're not like to see baby cockatoos because they don't emerge from the nest until they're bigger. You can only tell the sex of the bird by the colour of the eyes: males have a solid black iris, females a red iris. Tracking has also found cockies are very egalitarian when it comes to parenting, with each long-term partner taking turns to stay with the eggs and the chicks, while the other goes out foraging, Dr Martin says. Sometimes multiple flocks will converge on a particular area for a festival of feeding. Professor Kaplan says cockatoos also communicate by changing the shape of their yellow crest and combining this with different body postures to indicate alarm, availability or something lighter.įor example, for 15 years she's taken care of a cockatoo called Pumpkin who can no longer fly due to injury.Īnd she knows when Pumpkin is feeling playful: "His crest goes up completely and his head starts bobbing up and down and sideways."Īnd he says, just like in a township, the birds hang out in various combinations, including gangs of 5 to 20 birds who are best mates. They have other shorter calls for communication, she adds. She says this behaviour evolved as a way of terrifying away would-be predators, even though there are few of those left around these days. It was frightening," Professor Kaplan says. "The worst I ever heard was a flock of 150 that sounded like a freight train.
If there's one thing sulphur-crested cockatoos are known for, it's their loud, raucous screeching as they zoom overhead: it can be quite deafening when they're in big numbers. Professor Kaplan says some of the damage caused by cockatoos may be a result of humans having gotten rid of so much of the birds' natural habitat. He says keeping them away involves a bit of persistence - you can try spraying them with water, putting a taut wire above railings, or using bird-safe netting to exclude them from areas. "It could just be they've got a bad attitude," says Dr Martin, adding it might be boredom or playfulness, and it might only be some individuals that are guilty of this behaviour. They might be sharpening their beak - but that seems like a lot of sharpening!
Without being inside the mind of a sulphur-crested cockatoo, it's not clear why they do this sort of thing. The birds need hollows in old trees to breed.
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