Every six months or so, a group of Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos come to our Banksia for a feed. They come for a few days in a row, then move on to find another feeding area.

Sometimes they spend more time plucking and dropping than eating. Still, it always feels like such a privilege to have magnificent creatures like this just dropping by. I love the wild, screaming noise that they make. Some people call them the “squeaky door birds”:

The tree is a Banksia serrata, also known as Old Man Banksia. 

On the birds’ second visit a day or so later, I filmed some interesting behaviour. One of the birds was making a continuous groaning noise. That’s not unusual, and I’ve wondered in the past if the bird is a youngster begging for food, or if it’s some kind of mating behaviour.

I think I have an answer! In this video, it looks like the male bird (he has a pink ring around his eye) is regurgitating food and then feeding it to the bird that’s making all the noise:

I added quite a lot of detail about these birds in a previous post: Those magnificent black cockatoos are back!

Common name: Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo
Scientific name: Calyptorhynchus funereus or Zanda funereus
Length: 58-65 cm
Date spotted: 27th and 29th May 2024 (autumn)
Location: Allambie Heights, NSW, Australia