Polly wants a tracker: wing-tags shed light on Sydney's cockatoos

Released: A tagged cockatoo is set free at the Botanic Gardens. Photo: Wolter PeetersColumbus is a real city slicker. Over six weeks, the sulphur-crested cockatoo has foraged in his regular stomping grounds of Woolloomooloo, Centennial Park and Cremorne. After dark, he prefers to roost in the Botanic Gardens, Potts Point or Rushcutters Bay Park – except for a one-night stand on the beach in Mosman.

Click to read more ...

Cockatoos Learn To Make Tools By Watching Their Friends

Goffin's cokatoo using a tool to get the desired treat. Image via Alice AuerspergMore than fifty years ago, humans were pretty well convinced that they were special, different from the rest of the animal kingdom. That all changed in 1964 when Jane Goodall reported her observations of tool use in chimpanzees. Now we have evidence that Goffin's cockatoos, parrots that don't use tools in the wild, have the cognitive capacity to learn to manufacture, modify, and use tools anyway.

Click to read more ...

Perth Zoo working to save the rare Western Ground Parrot from extinction

A rare photograph of a western ground parrot. Image by Jennene RiggsThere are only 140 western ground parrots in the wild and now the Perth Zoo is hoping to bring them back from the brink of extinction with a captive breeding program.

Click to read more ...

New species of parrot described from the Chatham Islands

Nestor chathamensis, the extinct Chatham Islands parrot. New Zealand officially has a new species of bird; unfortunately birdwatchers are unlikely to have much luck if they go looking for it, as it has already been extinct for several hundred years.

Click to read more ...

Countdown to Carnaby extinction

Cleared land in Baldivis.The future looks doomed for local populations of threatened Carnaby’s black cockatoos, with numbers dwindling in remaining pockets of bushland.

BirdLife Australia released results of its Great Cocky Count this week, with just 25 black cockatoos spotted at survey sites across the Rockingham and Kwinana region, the lowest on record.

Just two out of 10 surveyed sites in Baldivis, Wellard, Casuarina, Secret Harbour and Wandi, previously home to cockatoos, had occupied roosts.

Click to read more ...