As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Monday 28 May 2018

South-eastern red-tailed black cockatoo's shrill screech may help save it from extinction




By Ann Jones for Off Track
Posted Saturday at 21:04

Unusually, the female of this cockatoo species is more colourful than the male.

He is truly glossy; black as tar glistening in the heat, with a strong circle of red revealed on the tail, most visible when seen from below. But he pales in comparison to his mate.

She is a stunner, with black feathers scalloped in yellow, red and orange that swirl into a broach on her chest and give her sub-species their name — the painted lady.

They belong to one of five sub-species of red-tailed black cockies, spread out across Australia.

The south-eastern red-tailed black cockatoo lives in a small area, completely isolated from its closest evolutionary neighbours by huge swathes of impassable terrain.

These are birds that stand on the precipice of extinction.

But the high-pitched sounds made by fledgling chicks could be key to their preservation.

Rare and ever rarer
Like all black cockies, they're most often heard before seen, calling from the air as they fly, then appearing as a team of black crucifixes in the sky.

They look like a cross between a raven and an eagle: large, solid and dark as night.

They move in forward motion on longer wing strokes than seem physically possible. It's as if, by some miracle of avian biology, they are held aloft more by magic than by wing beats.

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