Tag Archives: Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoo

Ignorance is bliss

Posted on February 21, 2020 | 5 comments

While staying in Mallacoota I visit Bastion Point several times a day at various tides looking for the birds that usually stop by this part of the coast. On most visits I came across a flock of Yellow-tailed Black-cockatoos. I think it was an extended family as there were several adults and a bunch of juveniles still begging for food. The sound young cockatoos make when begging would make anyone give them food just to shut them up. On this occasion the adults  were quite agitated while the younger birds played around, looking about I found a young whistling kite on a tree branch nearby watching them all intently.

Yellow-tailed Black-cockatoo, Bastion Point, Mallacoota, Vic

Yellow-tailed Black-cockatoo, Bastion Point, Mallacoota, Vic

Yellow-tailed Black-cockatoo, Bastion Point, Mallacoota, Vic

II

Yellow-tailed Black-cockatoo, Bastion Point, Mallacoota, Vic

Preening and teasing each other

Immature Whistling Kite, Bastion Point, Mallacoota, Vic

Immature Whistling Kite watching the Black-cockatoos

Superb Fairy-wren, Bastion Point, Mallacoota, Vic

A bright male Superb Fairy-wren on lookout. 

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Posted in Bird Behaviour, Birds, Victoria

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A yellow-tailed Vandal

Posted on January 19, 2020 | Leave a comment

As I sorted out my camera gear out for my weekly walk around Green’s Bush I heard a crunching in the trees above my car. Several Yellow-tailed black cockatoos were tearing into the branches of a Blackwood tree. Cockatoos will often attack tree branches (and houses) to keep their every growing bills trim and to find insect larvae boring into the wood.

Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo, Greens Bush, Mornington Peninsula National Park, Vic

Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo, Greens Bush, Mornington Peninsula National Park, Vic

Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo, Greens Bush, Mornington Peninsula National Park, Vic

Male YTBC with pink eye ring

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Roadside stop with the Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos

Posted on May 22, 2016 | 6 comments

On the way down to the Mornington Peninsula with the Port Phillip Birders (Elwood/St Kilda Branches) to look for Black Faced Cormorants at Merricks Beach, and Albatross at Cape Schank, we stopped to watch the feeding antics of a family of Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos. They were working a dead wattle tree that seemed to be full of wood borer grubs.

Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria

Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria

Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria

II

Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria

Finding a wood borer grub

Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria

Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo

Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria

A pair of Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo

Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria

Male Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo (with pink eye rings), female or juvenile behind

Birders, Greens Bush, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria

The hard core team from Port Phillip Birder at Greens Bush, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria



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Birds of Cloudehill, Olinda

Posted on February 9, 2015 | 4 comments

Within the Dandenong Ranges, about an hour east of Melbourne, is a stunning garden called Cloudehill. It is one of the three display garden nurseries of the Diggers Club. The other two gardens are the Garden of St Erth in Blackwood and Heronswood in Dromana. I think Cloudehill is one of the most beautiful gardens I have been to and as an added bonus it is usually full of birds.  While Mrs Gap Year wanders around and then hits the nursery shop or the cafe to read the paper I can go deeper into the gullies at the bottom of the gardens and look for birds. On this occasion I went to find the resident lyrebirds but for the first time I did not hear or see them. I did find a rather large and noisy flock of Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoos – shooting into the canopy was difficult but with Lightroom the images could be salvaged.

Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoo

Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoo

Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoo II - several were chewing on the bark of this tree.

Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoo II – several were chewing on the bark of this tree.

Silvereye

Silvereye

Juvenile Silvereye

Juvenile Silvereye

Juvenile Spinebill

Juvenile Spinebill

Juvenile Spinebill II

Juvenile Spinebill II

Juvenile Spinebill III

Juvenile Spinebill III

Juvenile Spinebill IV

Juvenile Spinebill IV

Part 2  – The Wonderful Gardens of Cloudehill

Coming Soon:

Part 3 – Colours of Cloudehill

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Posted in Birds, Victoria

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