Yellow-tailed black cockatoo

Description:

A female and male brownish black cockatoos about 65cm long. Both had fluffy black feathers on their heads and long black tails with creamy- yellow and yellow black panels. The first two photos are of the male. His yellow cheek patches are smaller than the female, the eye-ring ( if you can see it) is a deep pink and the upper part of the beak is dark grey, the lower being paler. The last three pictures are of a female bird - the yellow cheek patches are larger. The upper part of the beak is white and the eye-ring grey. Both birds show yellow/pale yellow tail panels.

Habitat:

Temperate rainforests, mountain and coastal eucalyptus forests and woodland, coastal heaths, plantations of introduced pine.

Notes:

These two birds were in our backyard. I heard loud cracking and ripping sounds and soft cries of a black cockatoo and to my surprise there were two birds, sitting on (one ripping) eucalyptus trees. We have had these birds here for years but have only seen them this close on two occasions. They fly in a trio -slowly with deep up and down wing movements. You can always hear their calls around where we live. I am absolutely delighted to present these photos on Project Noah. I have taken a video - very amateur work but you can hear their calls. Will try and post that too. These two might be young ones - the black cockatoos nest on the pines in our neighbour's yard.