Glossy Black-Cockatoo Calyptorhynchus lathamii

Length 48 cm; wingspan 90 cm; weight 420 g.

The smallest of Australia’s black-cockatoos, the Glossy Black-Cockatoo is usually seen in pairs or trios (comprising a pair and a dependent young), though occasionally small parties of up to ten birds (and sometimes more) are seen.  Unlike the Red-tailed and Yellow-tailed Black-Cockatoos, this species is quiet, unobtrusive and rather undemonstrative.  Small groups spend much of the day feeding quietly on seeds, and feeding birds can often be located by listening for the constant clicking of them breaking seedpods and the resulting sound of falling litter.  They are very tame, especially when feeding, often allowing a close approach.  When disturbed, the birds usually fly to a nearby tree and resume feeding.  The species is entirely arboreal, coming to the ground only to drink.  The flight is rather buoyant, with slow shallow wing-beats; when moving between feeding areas they fly well above the tree-tops, and then glide on down-curved wings to descend.

HABITAT
Glossy Black-Cockatoos are seldom recorded away from casuarinas (in which they feed almost exclusively), and they usually inhabit casuarina forests or eucalypt forests and woodlands where casuarinas are common in the understorey.  They also occur in mixed woodland assemblages of casuarinas, cypress-pines or Brigalow.  The species is often confined to remnant patches in hills and gullies, and they may occur in stands of casuarinas in or surrounded by grasslands, cleared agricultural land (including cereal crops), towns and golf-courses.  They usually roost in the canopy of a live, leafy tree, especially eucalypts, within 1 kilometre of their feeding sites and, during breeding season, within 30 metres of their nest tree.

DISTRIBUTION
Endemic to mainland Australia.

STATUS

• Vulnerable in Queensland
• Vulnerable in New South Wales
• Vulnerable in Victoria
• Endangered in South Australia (Kangaroo Island)
• Endangered (Kangaroo Island; South Australia) in EPBC Act

THREATS
Clearing of forests and woodlands for settlement, agriculture, firewood and timber removes food sources and potential nesting trees, and has resulted in population declines, local extinctions and contractions in the range of Glossy Black-Cockatoos.  Altered fire regimes in south-eastern Australia since European settlement, with a tendency towards more frequent, more intense fires, have also rendered much habitat unsuitable; and grazing by rabbits, sheep and cattle suppresses the regeneration of casuarinas.  In NSW, prevalent improvement practices in state forests in the 1970s and 1980s included the removal of casuarinas from stands of timber, thus destroying areas of potential habitat that could have been inhabited by Glossy Black-Cockatoos.

MOVEMENTS
Variously considered sedentary, resident or locally or partly nomadic.

Return to Previous Page