The Carnaby’s Black Cockatoo is a spectacular bird to watch in a flock. They’re up to 2 feet tall/high/long and sometimes live in enormous roosts. When several hundred all fly up at once you can’t help but pay attention, partly due to the racket they make. They’re only found in South-West Western Australia, and only in fairly specific habitats. Sadly they’re endangered, with numbers dropping by over 50% in just 50 years mainly due to habitat loss.
If you want to see them then I suggest you visit Yanchep National Park. It’s home to a large population and you’re certain to see lots of them there. They often sit in the huge trees around the main car park. As I’ve mentioned here before, they delight in leaving charming deposits all over my car so I have to wash it when I get home. I’m wise to it now and I’m very careful which spot I choose to park in.
There’s another cockatoo called ‘Baudin’s Black Cockatoo’. I’m sure I could write a similar article and post a picture of a Carnaby, and no one would be any the wiser. This is because they are almost identical, they also live only in South-West Western Australia, and only in fairly similar habitats. In fact, I read somewhere that the ‘easiest’ way to tell them apart is to look at the cones dropped after they’ve picked out the seeds and examine the marks that their beaks leave behind! I think that may be a fairly specialist art, I’m thinking ‘Australia’s Got Talent’.
There are huge numbers of them at Yanchep, but I struggle to get a good photo of them as they choose to sit in the highest trees. It’s not easy without a decent zoom lens. On one occasion I did come across several foraging on the floor, and they let me get fairly close to them. I can’t help thinking they look a bit guilty in this picture.
