A crest with meaning
It raises its yellow crest when it is excited, alarmed or showing off.
The bush
Sulphur-crested cockatoo
Cacatua galerita
A big white parrot with a yellow crest that it can raise like a fan, and a dark beak.
- Size
- About 50cm long
- Look for it
- All year round
- Where
- Woods, farms and towns of northern and eastern Australia
Flaps after you, then walks about looking for mischief. Move your pointer and see.
When to look
Cockatoo
Good to know
Six things about the cockatoo
Very loud
Its screech is one of the loudest calls of any bird, made to carry through forest.
A long life
Cockatoos can live for 70 years or more.
Bin raiders
In Sydney, cockatoos have learned to flip open wheelie bins, and they copy the trick from each other.
A lookout
While a flock feeds on the ground, one or two birds watch from a tree and screech if danger comes.
They can dance
A cockatoo called Snowball showed scientists that birds can keep time to music.
The real thing
Photos of the cockatoo
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Photos are from Wikimedia Commons, used under the free licences shown. They have been resized, and cropped where they appear in link previews.
How to spot one
You will hear them first. Look for flocks of white birds on playing fields, or wheeling over the trees at dusk.
How to help
Cockatoos need old trees with big hollows to nest in. Protecting old woodland protects them.
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