Red-Tailed Black Cockatoo Count

 General Information

(taken from the redtail.com.au website below)

There are five sub-species of Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo. The South-eastern Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus banksii graptogyne) is only found in south-east South Australia and south-west Victoria. Whilst the call of the Red-tail is loud like that of the Yellow-tail Black-Cockatoo, with practice the difference becomes quite obvious. With an estimated population of less than 1000, it is in danger of extinction

VIEW MAP on the Red-tail Black Cockatoo website www.redtail.com.au/general. or click here

FOOD Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo feed almost entirely on the seeds of Brown Stringybark and Buloke trees. Clearing of these trees is a major contributing factor to their population decline. It is also thought that too frequent burning of bush areas has contributed to a decline in food for the Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo. Farmers can help by fencing off existing stands of Brown Stringybark and Buloke and by revegetating using these trees.

NESTS
Red-tailed Black-Cockatoos nest in large hollows formed in old eucalyptus, particularly dead Red Gums in farmed paddocks. These trees and other trees with hollows are often removed for firewood or to tidy a paddock for farming.
It is essential for Red-tails to have access to suitable nest trees and farmers can help by protecting trees with hollows.

How you can help ?

Sign up for the Red-tail Count in April 2004

Email :- teachers@forests.org.au or contact Wendy Beumer :- beumer@secnet.com.au

 

Protect Habitat Trees
The best thing we can do right now is to protect all existing Red-tail habitat. This includes Stringybark forest and buloke woodland. To protect these important areas we need to fence out all stock. This improves the health of the trees (stops ringbarking by stock) and allows regeneration by the existing trees, when their seed drops.
One of the main costs here is fencing materials, but the recovery team can help here. If you want information on obtaining financial assistance to protect Red-tail habitat a contact email is shortly forthcoming.

 

Plant Trees

There are three varieties of tree you can plant to help the Red-tail:

  1. Stringybarks both brown and desert (Eucalyptus baxterii and arenacea).
    These trees grow in the poorer sandy soils and form the main diet of the Red-tail    .
  2. Buloke (Allocasuarina leuhmanii).
    These trees grow in the clay based soils normally found north of Edenhope and form an important food supply when they fruit in late summer.
  3. Red Gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensus).
    These trees are often used by Red-tails to roost in over night. When the trees are older, maybe 100 years old, they may form the large hollows that Red-tails nest in. If you can, go out and collect your own local seed. This is easily done and will ensure that the plants you get grown or grow yourself are the right ones for your area.

    To collect seed from your own trees simply cut off a bunch of fruit (you need to collect Buloke prior to Febuary) put it in a paper bag and store in dry warm spot. As the fruit dries it will open the pods and the seed will fall out into the bag.

Protect nest trees
Red-tails need trees with large hollows to build their nest. These are normally in dead Red Gums but can be in a variety of other Eucalypts.

Some times these trees are removed for firewood, but normally only by inexperienced wood gatherers, as nest trees have hollows and therefore do not hold anywhere near the quantity of wood that a solid tree does. Always avoid knocking over trees with hollows, they have poor firewood value and are the homes of a whole suite of critters, many of which are of benefit to farmers as well. Nests are also under threat from predation by possums. By placing old corrugated iron (about 1.2m long) at about chest height, possums will not be able to get a grip and thus not have access to nests.

 

 

Other Links include an Education Kit for Students :- http://www.birdsaustralia.com.au/rtbced/index.html

- This Kit is for early tertiary and late secondary students doing environmental studies and related subjects.

And the Australian Broadcasting Commision (ABC) site :- For kids to be involved with the National Bird Survey - from Backyard to Bush - All species http://www.abc.net.au/birds/

Information below is from the Birds Australia website :- http://www.birdsaustralia.com.au/birds/rtbc.html

Cockatoos: Family Cacatuidae

Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo (south-eastern)
Calyptorhynchus banksii graptogyne

The nationally endangered south-eastern subspecies of the Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo is distinguished from rest of the species by its small size, brightly coloured female birds and specialised feeding and breeding requirements.

In Victoria, the South-eastern Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo occurs from Portland in south-east to just north of the Little Desert, while in South Australia it is found from Bangham-Francis to Mt Gambier. Its former distribution may never have been much greater than this, but the extent of occurrence within this range has declined significantly due to habitat loss (c. 60% of habitat in Vic and 80% in SA has been destroyed). The current population is around 700 to 1,000 birds.

These Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo's feed on the seeds of Brown Stringybarks Eucalyptus baxteri / E. arenacea and Bulokes Allocasuarina leuhmannii. For nesting, the Cockatoo's require old River Red Gums E. camaldulensis or Yellow Gums E. leucoxylon with large hollows. Most nest trees are within 2km of suitable feeding habitat.

Much of the feeding habitat used by these birds is protected in State Forests. However, nesting habitat on private land is disappearing rapidly as a consequence of tree dieback, felling of potential nest trees for firewood, and the general intensification of farming (i.e change from grazing to farm forestry, cropping etc.).

According to the Action Plan for Australian Birds 2000, the south-eastern subspecies of the Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo is endangered.