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All of the black cockatoos are impressive birds, but this one -- the yellow-tailed black cockatoo -- is perhaps the most impressive. It is a huge dark bird that has long wings and a lilting, buoyant, almost moth-like flight, usually accompanied by shrill squealing plee-ark cries. Males have dark bills and pink eye-rings; females have dark eye-rings and whitish bills. They feed primarily on large nuts, like the Banksia seeds many of these are eating. Both sexes almost have a prehistoric look, to my mind. I took the photos in and around the city of Wollongong in coastal New South Wales. Unfortunately, the birds often let me get close, but frequently they were too close (frustrating, as the usually problem is the subject being too far away), or had lots of branches in the way. |
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