Passions & Pastimes
Birds of Bentley Park Part 2. By Bruce May Continued from February-March 2020 edition of Tidings. In this issue we’re looking at cockatoos and parrots.
Red-tailed Black Cockatoo
While on the cockatoo species, it is interesting to look at two of the species of Corella which also visit us.
Long-billed Corella
The Red-tailed Black Cockatoo, or Banks’ Cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus banksii), is an occasional visitor to our village, particularly after the flowering gums have started developing their seed pods or gumnuts. While these are still tender, the cockatoos tear them apart to get the goodness from inside, and litter the ground below. For this reason and their loud, screechy calls, they are not very popular with some people. The male birds have bright red/orange panels under their tails, which gives them their name. The females have speckled chest feathers. These cockatoos live in hollows in trees, and as it can take up to 70 years for such hollows to develop, we need to ensure that many large, old trees are preserved. Because they are losing so many home trees, these cockatoos are officially under threat; and any injured ones are now taken to the Perth Zoo to try to ensure their survival. The Red Tails are not native to other parts of Australia, so they are endemic to our region. The call of the red-tailed cockatoos is very similar to other black cockatoo species.
24 SwanCare
The Long-billed Corella (Cacatua tenuirostris) is the one receiving bad press at the moment, and some people are even declaring them a pest. Their long bills are used for digging bulblets and corms out of the ground, as their major food. In recent years, claims have been made that they have destroyed municipal ovals when hundreds, even thousands, of them descend at once. However, their efforts may also lead to oxygenation of the grass, and may be beneficial, especially as they are manuring the grass at the same time.
