New Homes for Cockatoos

The alpine forests of Australia’s southeast are home to an iconic pint-sized gray parrot with a bright red mohawk, and a call that’s been described as a “flying creaky gate.” The Gang-gang Cockatoo has seen significant habitat loss in recent years, especially after the 2020 wildfires. It’s now listed as an endangered species. A new national working group is coordinating recovery efforts. Researchers and community scientists are trialing an innovation on the Gang-gang population called the “Cockatube” — a PVC tube designed to host a cockatoo nest.

BirdNote^®

New Homes for Cockatoos

Written by Josephine McRobbie

This is BirdNote.

[Southeast Australian soundscape]

The alpine forests of Australia’s southeast are home to an iconic pint-sized gray parrot with a bright red mohawk, and a call that’s been described as a “flying creaky gate”.

[Gang-gang Cockatoo call]

The Gang-gang Cockatoo has seen significant habitat loss in recent years, especially after the 2020 wildfires. It’s now listed as an endangered species. A new national working group is coordinating recovery efforts. Researchers and community scientists are trialing an innovation on the Gang-gang population called the “Cockatube”.

These cockatoos nest in the hollows of old-growth eucalyptus, lining the holes with bark they strip from surrounding trees. And these large hollows are harder to find after the wildfires. While the Gang-gang would just tear apart a typical wooden nest box, artificial tubes made of beak-resistant PVC might just do the trick.

These “Cockatubes” are the ideal size for a Gang-gang nest and feature drainage holes, a temperature logging device for researchers to check conditions, and a chewing stick for nest material. Volunteers will spend the next five years monitoring the nests, with hopes of jump-starting the Gang-gang population.

[Gang-gang Cockatoo call]

For BirdNote, I’m Ariana Remmel.

###

Senior Producer: Mark Bramhill
Producer: Sam Johnson
Managing Editor: Jazzi Johnson
Content Director: Jonese Franklin

Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Environmental sound ML 213294 recorded by Vicki Powys and Gang-gang Cockatoo ML 298504251 recorded by Riley Metcalfe.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2022 BirdNote November 2022 January 2025
Narrator: Ariana Remmel

ID# GAGCOC-01-2022-11-28 GAGCOC-01

References:

https://www.cmtedd.act.gov.au/open_government/inform/act_government_med…

https://www.lls.nsw.gov.au/regions/murray/articles,-plans-and-publicati…

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/rec.13713

https://www.esc.nsw.gov.au/news-and-events/latest-news/2021/gang-up-to-…