Monitoring of Red-tailed Black-Cockatoos

Each year members of the recovery team and volunteers collect a range of information which assist us to assess how Red-tail populations are performing.

This includes the annual count in which we count the entire range in one day, reporting sightings of Red -tails all year round, and measuring the growth and survival rates of chicks to measure nesting success. Now detailed ‘flock counts’ are used as the main measure of nesting success, the number of young birds which have been produced each year.

Flock counts are done in autumn each year. Because young Red-tails are indistinguishable in the field from two and three-year old birds and from females of any age, we count the number of adult males in each flock. Adult males are recognisable by their uniform black colour and red tail feathers. All other Red-tails are spotted and barred, with barred tail feathers. The proportion of adult males in flocks in autumn varies from year to year, according to how many young birds have been produced in the preceding breeding season. 

More successful nesting means more young birds, thus a lower proportion of adult males. Flock counts have shown us that the breeding seasons of 2004-05 and 1998-1999 produced far more young birds than any intervening years. In those two years flocks contained an average of 37% adult males in autumn.