Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo

The Yellow-tailed Black-Cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus funereus) is one of Australia’s five species of black cockatoo and is native to south-eastern Australia. The most commonly heard sound made by this species is a loud mournful wailing call, often given by birds in flight. They also make a range of softer calls while interacting, often while feeding as a flock.

Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos primarily feed on the seeds of native shrubs and trees, (they love hakeas & banksias as shown in the image on this page!). However, they will also use their massive, powerful beaks to dig into the trunks of wattle trees and even hardwood eucalyptus to extract wood-boring insect larvae. You can hear an example of what this sounds like in the latter section of the video below.

Like many other large parrot species, Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos require large hollows typical of old growth trees for nesting. Habitat fragmentation and land clearing has contributed to population declines of this species in New South Wales and Victoria.