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The pictured female Forest red-tailed black cockatoo was a very relaxed individual.
Three other red-tails had also been dining on the relevant small, but fruit-laden “Cape Lilac”, but they fled when pedestrian traffic increased.
However, homeward-bound students from Bob Hawke High walking or cycling, directly below “her” tree – and some codger with a camera – did not bother this post’s heroine.
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In front, above, is a female red-tail.
Behind her is a male.
At the relevant time and place – 11.11 am on 01 May, in a so-called Cape Lilac tree, growing in a West Leederville lane – they were two of five red-tails, enthusiastically feasting on the same tree.
Debris was “raining” down, temporarily “greening” the asphalt.
One oft-evident aspect of same-species’ bird behaviour was conspicuously absent…as is very often the case with all three of southwestern Western Australia’s black cockatoos.
(equally magnificent, and also endangered, the other two are “our” planet’s only white-tailed black cockatoos)
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Unmistakably, the pictured individual is an adult male Forest red-tailed black cockatoo.
The tree he is trashing (but fear not: in the longer run, the apparently “ravaged” tree will in fact be all the healthier for the cockatoos’ efforts) is less than one minute’s walk from where I am currently sitting, at home.
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You may be less than surprised to know that this post’s image is not the photo that I had envisaged/intended!
Once a bird is airborne, one fiftieth of one second can prove a surprisingly long time – long enough to transition from “look at that bird!” to “nothing to see but sky”.
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As you can see, the head of the male of this subspecies is – beak excepted – a study in “basic black”.
And, as you will see in following posts, even if the flash of an individual’s tail – or part of his/her chest – is all you can see, it is very easy to identify an adult red-tail’s gender.
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This post’s photo was taken just one lane away from yesterday’s featured image.
As was also true yesterday, the individual you are looking at is definitely a female Forest-red-tailed black cockatoo.
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Pictured above is a small part of an artwork which occupies the entire lane-facing side on one West Leederville residence’s back fence.
It is a lovely, loving salute to/depiction of Calyptorhynchus banksii naso – the Forest red-tailed black cockatoo.
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Australia has six black cockatoo species.
All are intelligent, sociable, spectacularly agile, and have very powerful beaks.
The world’s only two white-tailed black cockatoo species – both endangered – are endemic to southwest Western Australia.
My beloved and I are lucky enough to see and hear one of them – Carnaby’s Black Cockatoo – on hundreds of occasions, every year.
The featured image shows behaviour which is very familiar to us.
The other photos show something “new”, at least to us.
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(Sequel to immediately-preceding post. If you are new to Pelican Yoga, please see/read that post before you explore this one)
This post’s cockatoos were not playing “Banksia rugby”, but they were members of the same flock, and also part of our “late arvo Carnabys Encounter” on 15 September 2021, just outside Cape Arid National Park’s northwestern edge.
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Imagine a spectacularly athletic, aerial form of rugby, played by members of an endangered cockatoo species…
This post will also lead you to a superb, long-awaited book by an Australian whose bird photography is in an entirely different league to yours truly’s.
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