Hello cocky! Rare yellow-feathered mutation of red-tailed black cockatoo draws twitchers' attention

ABC South West WA 

By Anthony Pancia

Updated 20 Feb 2019, 3:02am

Western Australia's bird watching community is abuzz with joy following a sighting of a rare yellow-feathered forest red-tailed black cockatoo spotted frolicking in a tree outside a regional police station.

The bird's plumage is thought to be the result of a genetic mutation opposite of albinism called leucism, which has left the bird with brilliant yellow feathers in place of should have been red or black ones.

Though not confirmed to be the same bird, a similarly marked cockatoo has been sighted and photographed just south of Perth in Bedfordale, more than 150 kilometres north of the most recent sighting in a lemon-scented gum tree outside Bunbury Police Station.

The ABC was alerted to the bird's presence by Bunbury-based environmental biologist and avid bird-watcher, Johnny Prefumo, who first sighted it in early February.

"I was driving when I first saw it and at first I thought it may have been the light, but when I twigged as to what it was I almost had a car accident," Mr Prefumo said.

"It was half by chance that I was walking past the police station and heard a big flock of cockatoos, looked up and there she was.

Continued

Birdwatchers crowdsourced to help save endangered black cockatoos in WA

Western Austrlaian researchers to recruit up to 1,000 volunteers to conduct population surveys of the Baudin’s and forest red-tailed cockatoos

Calla Wahlquist

Tuesday 20 January 2015 01.07 GMT

Researchers in Western Australia are crowdsourcing population surveys about black cockatoos in an effort to save two rare species.

BirdLife WA received $255,000 from the West Australian government’s Lotterywest fund on Monday to conduct population surveys of the Baudin’s and forest red-tailed cockatoos.

Dr Jessica Lee, threatened black cockatoo project officer at BirdLife, said both species were endemic to the forests of south-western Australia, stretching from Bunbury to Albany, and their large range made it difficult to get an accurate count.

She aims to recruit up to 1,000 volunteers to survey the black cockatoo populations in their local area to build up an estimate of the surviving population.

“The idea is to develop a volunteer base who are able to go out and survey the birds on their own property in their own time to give us a snapshot of the birds that are there,” she said.

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