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Eolophus roseicapilla
A moderate sized bird of the parrot family with a white head, beautiful pink throat and chest and grey back. The pink in the abdomen fades to white on the underside of the tail.
Open forests and grasslands. Very common in most residential areas in outer suburbs. Usually on grass verges and sometimes on safety islands !
An interesting excerpt from "Parrots & Pigeons of Australia", Francis Crome, James Shields (1992): "The Galah has hybridised with other cockatoos both in the wild and in captivity. There are also records of aberrant coloration in the wild, where the pink or the grey in the plumage is replaced by white. One aviary hybridisation involving a Sulphur-crested Cockatoo and a Galah took place under unusual circumstances between two very old birds kept by Jim Rook, of Griffith, New South Wales. The male Galah, at the age of at least forty years, tore through the wire separating him from the female Sulphur-crested Cockatoo to consummate the relationship. Expecting no progeny from such an unlikely pairing, Rook did not provide a nest box, but the Sulphur-crested female was undeterred and excavated a nest chamber underneath a piece of corrugated iron to lay two eggs, which subsequently hatched to produce a pair of spectacular “Cock-galahs”. These birds were orange underneath, with grey wings and a large crest similar to that of the Pink Cockatoo (Major Mitchell)."
1 Comment
Lovely spotting and great info on the hybridisation. Thanks for sharing