Cockatoo tags tell locals from fly-by-nighters

Cockatoo 006Ever marvelled to yourself about all those squawky cockatoos that live around our local area?

Well, that may not be entirely true.

Researchers studying the birds are finding that many of them travel further around Sydney than some of us would think.

Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens has tagged more than 20 cockatoos (with more to be tagged) which frequent the area as part of a study to see how many call its greenery “home”.

Wildlife management officer John Martin said they had noticed a low level of breeding in the area and suspected many of the birds only visited the gardens.

“We also don’t know where they forage or where they’re breeding,” he said.

They are appealing to bird watchers to look out for cockatoos which carry a yellow plastic wing tag with a number and to report sightings on a special web page so the researchers can track their movements.

The birds have been given names like CockaStu and Party Boy, and sightings have come from places like Manly Vale, Allambie Heights and Balgowlah Heights in the north, to Bexley in the south.

University of Sydney ecology doctoral student Adrian Davis, who is also involved in the study, said they had fielded more than 50 sightings so far.

“Cockatoos are highly mobile and our early results reflect this. People are seeing the wing-tagged cockatoos and want to know why they’re tagged.”

The public’s feedback is not being used as a publicity ploy, either. Electronic tagging of the birds to record their movements was too expensive for this study.

BE INVOLVED

Bird watchers can report sightings via facebook.com/cockatoowingtags