Robin – Invasive Species Officer with BCC. Here today to talk about Glossy Black-Cockatoo Conservancy. There is a mob up on Mt Nebo. They are cryptic and seasonal. The GBC is a smaller cockatoo. We have 3 cockatoos locally predominantly – Red-tailed Black Yellow-tailed Black and Glossy Black. The GBC is not very glossy. It is dull and sooty small 40-50cm in height while the RTB and YTB are about 60cm and are both glossy. GBC has a huge beak. They have a tail very similar to the RTC especially the females and juveniles with red in it. The RTB has yellow splotches on their head. The GBC has dots on its head. The GBC is listed as vulnerable under the Native Species Act. So they are trying to create awareness of them with the public and try to get records of sightings. They are very quiet a feeble call not raucous like the RTB and YTB. They only feed on sheoaks. Often when you do come across one you’ll hear them feeding on the sheoak cones dropping them on the ground. It is a way of knowing they are in your area when you find chewed cones at the base of a tree. Each individual cockatoo feeds differently in how they eat a sheoak cone (orts = chewed cones). They are limited by their food (sheoak and casuarinas) their nesting holes and water holes. They move with the food. They show fidelity with their food trees so you can have a whole area of sheoaks but they might only feed on one or two of them. We don’t know why they do that. We don’t get a lot of sightings of them. They are obligate nesters requiring hollow trees to nest. Very slow to reproduce one young every 2 years. Female lays one egg and incubates it for 30 days while the male goes out to forage and feed her. The young is fed for 96 days. When it fledges the adults and the young hang out together for another 12 months. Usually you see them in pairs and threes. The 2 with yellow splotches on their heads will be the female and the young. Brushtail possums predate heavily on the eggs of the GBCs. GBC don’t have a crest and they have a shorter tail. Watering sites need to be within 1.5kms of their nesting sites. Usually pools of water by the road. If you sight a GBC you can lodge the sighting on the Glossy Black Cockatoo Conservancy Website. www.glossyblack.org.au
May 22nd – Birding Day 3403 4323 Lee Anne Veage. Another in October. We get volunteers to work on private property to go out and record and see if they can see them.
Good to go through and have a look early on to identify where there are casuarinas.
Another pair sighted at Jolly’s Lookout last year.
The survey goes on from Northern New South Wales to Bundaberg.
As a species they are known to occur up at Rockhampton down to Northern NSW. They prefer hilly areas but not only. Noosa Perigian Beach.