Black Cockatoos are unique, very social birds that have loud and distinctive calls. In Australia, there are five species of black cockatoos - the Carnaby’s, Baudin’s, glossy black, red-tailed and yellow-tailed. Many of these species and subspecies are threatened to some degree, facing different threats and challenges, such as ongoing and extensive breeding and foraging habitat loss and degradation due to vegetation clearing, hampered by the bushfires that swept across several states in Australia during the summer of 2019-2020.
The good news is that there has been considerable effort by organisations and individuals to reverse this situation. Landcare Serpentine-Jarrahdale, in Western Australia, has designed an artificial nesting box that has been named “Cockatube”, which is a cylindrical nesting box attached to a tree where cockatoos would normally nest, measuring approximately 400 millimetres in diameter and at least one metre deep. The base has holes for drainage and wood chips for their eggs, there is also a ladder, for climbing in and out of the hollow.
“Cockatubes” have been installed in protected areas as well as in private properties and schools’ grounds. In some of those schools, the students observe and record activity at the nesting hollows and pass data onto Birdlife Australia. These activities increase students’ understanding and awareness of the environment and gives them new skills and an interest in taking environmental action on local reserves, while helping to save these lovely creatures.
The B&B Highway aims to protect pollinators of all kinds and install regenerative habitat in urban, peri-urban and regional areas around Australia. Click here to find out more about our project and how it helps support biodiversity and pollination.