Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoo

I got lucky this morning with two Black Cockatoos in a Silver Wattle. Only about 12 feet away from me, they kept looking for grubs and didn’t fly off!

Male Southern Yellow-Tailed Black Cockatoos (Zanda xanthanotus). Identified from the females by pink eye rings and black beak.

46 thoughts on “Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoo

  1. Nice photos Tone. It’s good isn’t it when the birds sit close to you and you don’t have to have the tele lens at full stretch. They’re a fascinating bird. We have quite a few of them in and around Apollo Bay.

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    1. Thanks John, they’re a regular visitor to the valley here but they’re usually wary when I get close. Last time it happened the light was pretty low. One of my favourite birds here, they look like they’re from pre-historic times!

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      1. Ha ha! I like to think so, you can easily imagine them flying around with dinosaurs 🦕 I call one of the ttacks up behind me “The Jurassic Track”, I have a recent pic of it to edit that will fearture in a post soon 🙂

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  2. I’m so glad you are sharing these beautiful birds with us. We have nothing like them here on the Canadian west coast. I would love to have one of these birds sit on my hand just for a few seconds (and not get pecked). They are gorgeous! Great photos, Tone.

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      1. Me neither – surprisingly I’m much more comfortable around snakes, they are so beautiful and the way they move intrigues me. Still, I prefer to keep my distance 😀

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    1. I’m not sure if it was the same ones I got close to not too many posts ago, but I was closer this time and the light was much better 🙂 It’s cool when wild animals trust you 😎

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    1. Thanks Donna, lovely to watch. Today about 8 of them landed noisily in a tree just off my deck. My camera was downstairs. I grabbed my phone but I think they saw me at the window and immediately flew off, no photo :/

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    1. Quite unique and very noisy, especially in a large group. I’ve seen flocks of as many as 20 in the valley, the sound of them calling to each other is incredible!

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      1. Thanks Thattamma, I always thought that Cockatoo derived from an Aboriginal name for the bird, but apparently it comes from Malay, meaning ‘vice’ or ‘grip’, because of their strong beak. There are 14 species of Cockatoo in Australia. They’re also found in Indonesia, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and the Philippines.

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      2. Yes, now I got in Malay name “Burung nuri” here so many 👌
        But this kind colour I never saw here , Australia only !! I think 😊
        Australia so famous for kind of Animals and Birds 👌🌷🙏♥️
        Thank you so much for this beautiful reply 🌷🙏🌷

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      3. Ah, Parrot! We have parrots here too, they are much smaller than Cockatoos! There is one that migrates to breed in Tasmania called the Swift Parrot – it is in extreme danger of becoming extinct.

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