Mystery Bird: Red-tailed Black Cockatoo, Calyptorhynchus banksii

Looks like a juvenile male Red-tailed Black Cockatoo.

In Darwin, these birds hang out literally right downtown.

Oops, I'm supposed the name at least field mark =/

The speckles at the base of the wing indicate it's a juvenile.

Females have speckles over more of the body, and more yellowish tail feathers.

It's a male Red-tailed Black Cockatoo. The male has red tail bands.

I'll stick my neck out and say Glossy Black Cockatoo. I think this is most likely in NSW. Also it's a female due to the black bars through the red on the tail.I think that Red-tailed is a northern Australian bird and only meets with Glossy in Queensland.

The male Red-Tailed Black Cockatoo may fit the location of the photo, along the Darling River inland from Eastern New South Wales.

Hmmm, tough one... the eastern subspecies of the Glossy Black (Calyptorhynchus lathami lathami) is found from southeastern Queensland through New South Wales to eastern Victoria, with the largest subspecies of the Red-tailed Black (Calyptorhynchus banksii banksii) found in northern New South Wales... apparently one of the best ways to differentiate between them is by the calls of their respective juveniles... also, paradoxically, the Glossy is said to have more brownish-black plumage on the head, neck, and underbody, and dull black body plumage instead of the uniformly glossy black plumage of the Red-tailed...

so just to be different, because of it's dependence on the evergreen shrubs and trees of the genus Casuarina I'm calling this by it's alternative common name, the Casuarina Black Cockatoo (still C. l. lathami)

Female Samueli Red-tailed Black Cockatoo or possibly a juvenile male as both have barred tail feathers and gold spots in the black feathering on the shoulders and face. The chest is also barred with gold but obviously we can't see the chest in this image.

Hi Diana,

From the following examples, I am not convinced that this would be a female Red-tailed Black- the barring on the tails in each example are a lot more yellow:

http://www.billabongsanctuary.com.au/aussie_animals/blackcockatoo.html

http://thecoopers.id.au/philcoopers/Birds/Red-Tailed%20Black%20Cockatoo…

http://www.redbubble.com/people/kkrafts/art/3585060-3-red-tailed-black-…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/zoom_eric/3086831288/

Both Glossy-Black and Red-tailed Cockatoo (ssp. samueli) occur near Walgett,

Full-red upper-tail panels eliminate female & young male Red-tailed.

Spots on upper wing eliminate adult Glossy-Black and adult male Red-Tailed.

Spots on wing & red upper-tail panels might be possible in a male Red-tailed ~3 years old.

Glossy-black immatures of both genders are variable and both look possible.

Without call, size, bill and only a poor view of the head colour, id looks problematic.

Maybe if you know C. b. samueli plumages.

Hi Andrew

The amount of yellow in female Red-tailed Blacks varies between species and within individuals. The species around Darwin is said to have the most yellow but I can't comment personally. Adult males have no barring at all and juvenile males can have redder juvenile feathers than adult females but not always. I have uploaded two images to Flickr. One is a male Calyptorhynchus banksii naso and a female Calyptorhynchus banksii samueli. The others are from a mixed aviary containing females of both these species. Not the greatest photos as the second is behind glass.

The areas of yellow can easily be hidden by the overlapping of the tail feathers.

Although it's difficult to tell with nothing in the image to indicate scale but this bird looks too big for a Glossy.

Bank's Cockatoo?

Hi Diana, the tail of female Red-Tailed changes as they age up to 20 years old. I don't know if individuals at some age can show no yellow in a view like this.

But it could be a male Red-Tailed ~3 years old.

And AFAIK it could be from this view (but isn't apparently) an imm. Glossy-black.