Red-tailed Black Cockatoo in flight

Red-tailed Black CockatooRed-tailed Black Cockatoo in flight

It is when the Red-tailed Black Cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus banksii) is in flight that you get to see the beauty of the colours in the tail feathers.

It is the adult male Red-tailed Black Cockatoo that has the bright red panels in its tail.

The female Red-tailed Black Cockatoo have more yellow-orange-red barred panels in their tail, with the older females having a lot a more colour in the tail feathers, compared to the younger females. The female cockatoo also have fine yellow spots on the head and wings with fine yellow barring across the underpart over a black base.

The juveniles have similar markings to the female cockatoo, with paler yellow barred underparts. This colour remain until puberty, upon which on reaching maturity, the male cockatoos yellow tail feathers are gradually replaced with red ones. The whole process takes around four years.

It can get confusing when identifying the young birds. As the young males develop, they can have both the colour of the female feathers and the solid red of males feathers in their tail. As they mature, they moult the female colour pattern, being replaced with the solid red pattern in the tail feathers.

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Red-tailed Black CockatooRed-tailed Black Cockatoo in flight

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