![]() It’s not just the cockatoos that are increasing in number. ![]() ![]() We are also looking into their behaviour and breeding patterns.” Rainbow lorikeets booming in addition to cockatoos “Our aim is to assess the size of their population, how loyal they are to a particular habitat and their movements within and beyond Sydney. “We are asking people to send in sightings of the birds we have tagged around Sydney, through Facebook, to help with our study which may last for decades, charting the full lifespan of these animals,” says John. The study may extend to other regions like the Blue Mountains. To this end, the RBG together with the University of Sydney is conducting a survey of sulphur-crested cockatoos in the Sydney and wider metropolitan region. But we really know very little about these birds and so that’s why we are we are conducting more research.” John Martin, wildlife officer at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney, says that sulphur-crested cockatoos started to shift their range about 30 years ago: “The drought in the Bathurst and Orange region, forced more cockatoos to move east to look for food. ![]() “Species that can adapt well behaviourally…are likely to be the dominant species in agricultural and urban landscapes,” he says. “These species include rats and mice, weeds…and also the cockatoo.” They can alter their feeding habits and withstand the stress of noise and cramped spaces to fit in with people.” “There also seems to be new populations of overconfident once-caged birds which have escaped.”Īccording to Clive Hambler an expert on animal behaviour at Oxford University in the UK: “Adaptability is one of the reasons the parrot family survive in cages as pets. “It’s the cockatoos ability to live alongside people that is perhaps the greatest factor allowing them to boom, but artificial feeding in people’s backyards is another factor,” she says. They are concerned by the fall in populations of species including flame robins, gang-gang cockatoos, crimson rosellas, honeyeaters, noisy miners and powerful owls. Sulphur-crested cockatoos compete with powerful owls, gang-gang cockatoos and other species for much-coveted tree hollows (Credit: Getty).Ĭarol works with the Blue Mountain Bird Observers (BMBO), a community group, with 130 members, that surveys bird numbers. “Both these species are listed as threatened in NSW and it’s possible the sulphur-cresteds are at least partly responsible.” “They are taking over nest hollows from gang-gang cockatoos and even powerful owls,” says Carol. These confident cockies are little threatened by other species and make formidable competitors for the tree hollows that other species of cockatoo and owls also require for nesting. In Sydney too, their numbers have doubled in the past 30 years, says Adrian Davis who studies parrots at the University of Sydney. But now, there are big flocks, often numbering 100 birds.” “Just three of them seemed unusual at the time. “I wrote in my notebook in 1985: ‘Three sulphur-crested cockatoos seen in Catalina Park (in Katoomba)’,” Carol says. Though they are natives to the region, their numbers have exploded to unusual levels in the last 10 years. Throughout the Blue Mountains these cockatoos – which thrive in areas of human habitation – are booming. But now it’s impossible to spend time in the Blue Mountains without seeing flocks of them.” “When I first came to live here in 1983, sulphur-crested cockatoos were a rare sight. If the outcome out here is that we are losing the normal dawn and dusk chorus, then “that’s a profound tragedy. “The cockatoos screeching at dawn and dusk drowns out the fainter, more subtle noise of smaller birds,” says Carol, which may be forcing those that rely on vocal communication to find quieter habitats away from the cockatoos. Drowning out the dawn chorus of other birds Occasionally, in between their calls we can hear robins, cuckoos and currawongs. Not that it seems to matter how quiet we are the cockatoos screech overhead, their yellow crests catching the last of the sun, their white wings stretched wide. We try to muffle all sound as we peer through our binoculars, scouring the trees for birds. We look up at the sandstone cliffs as it becomes darker. In the dirt there are v-shaped scratchings, meaning that a lyrebird had been here very recently. Ferns, blue gums and tall, pink-trunked angophoras line the sandy track. After a short walk down into the valley, we come to a creek that’s home to some scarcely seen platypus.
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