Sulphur-crested Cockatoo White Cockatoo Cacatua galerita
The Sulphur Crested Cockatoo is a large, highly intelligent and iconic Australian cockatoo that can be seen alone or in small flocks all over Mandeni at any time of the year. It quickly dominates any regular bird feeding place and becomes quite a pest, which often results in all feeding being abandoned! It can emit extremely loud screetches, and tends to bully other birds, although it is still dominated by the much smaller Rainbow Lorikeet.
We refer to the White Cockatoos as “The Bikie Gang”, they love to be vandals tearing off weather strips, eating through solar pool heaters, digging great holes in the greens on our golf course and generally destroying anything they can.
Rob and Owen came across a White Cockatoo anxious about the presence of a Lace Monitor climbing in the tree in which it perched – Owen’s photograph in the Gallery was the result, showing the White Cockatoo in typical threat display.
Rob saw a closely related White Cockatoo, but without the yellow crest, on Komodo Island in Indonesia where it is native to the East of the Wallace line.
Sulphur-crested Cockatoos, along with many other parrots, are susceptible to a widespread viral disease known as Psittacine Beak and Feather Disease, which causes the birds to lose their feathers and grow grotesquely shaped beaks – we have had to destroy several diseased birds which were barely able to fly or feed themselves.
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