Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo feeding on wattle tree grubs 5 April 2021 Melbourne
Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo [Calyptorhynchus funereus] is a large native Australian Cockatoo. The feathers are black with small yellow edges, except for the check patches and tail panels which are yellow. Female Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos have black markings on the yellow tail panels.
Adult male Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos have a pink eye ring and a grey black upper mandible and the yellow ear patches are smaller than the females. The adult female has grey eye ring and white mandibles. Juveniles appear similar to the adult female.
This young Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo was tearing away the bark and wood of a mature wattle tree to obtain a grub. It took about 20 minutes to extract and eat one grub then continued to remove wood but did not obtain a second grub.
