Red-Tailed Black Cockatoos

Piercing karak squawking
And a brilliant flash of red
And the marri nuts are falling
From the branches overhead

Red and black and welcome
They have travelled far from south
Seeking remnant marri
To feed their hungry mouths

Returning to the Moondyne
After many years
Forced to travel further
As their food source disappears

It’s been years since the Red-tailed Black Cockatoos were in the Moondyne and this year they are everywhere. When I first saw the falling marri nuts and the brilliant red flash of the spreading tail feathers I could scarcely believe it. But there they were in their hundreds, feasting on the marri nuts, while the forest rang with their piercing shrieks. But why are they back after all this time? This was the edge of their range 100 years ago but they have been gone for decades. As their once great population fell due to habitat loss to agriculture they retreated to their forest heartland far to the south and were rarely seen in their former haunts.  But now they are back and amidst the thrill of seeing them is a deep sense of foreboding. Something has changed!

There are five sub-species of Red-Tailed Black Cockatoos in Australia. The Forest Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus banksii naso) is found in the southwest corner of Western Australia between Perth and Albany and is classified as Near Threatened. It can be differentiated from the other sub-species by its large bill which is useful for getting seed out of the woody nuts of the Marri (Corymbia calophylla) which is its favorite food.  The population of this sub-species, similar to other sub-species of Red-Tailed Black Cockatoos, continues to fall. It’s return to the margins of its ancient haunts can only mean that conditions in the heartland have become more difficult or conditions in the margins more favorable. Hopefully it is the latter and there is certainly a bumper crop of Marri seed this year. The other thing that is odd is that Carnaby’s White-tailed Black Cockatoo ,which are generally on our property at this time of year, are nowhere to be seen. So we have a great cocky mystery. The Red-tails are here and the White-tails are somewhere else.  Hopefully they are all happy where-ever they are. And while I love to see them I can’t help hoping that the patterns soon return to normal. Major shifts in long-term population distributions are rarely a good thing and it looks to me that something at the moment is out of balance.