on 25/11/01 10:42 AM, Paddy Morgan at wrote:
We enjoy bird watching and recently something has come to our attention and we were wondering if you could shed any light on it for us.We live in Caboolture, 70km north of Brisbane and have recently noticed some trees that have marks on them like they have been attacked with a small axe but we have been told that yellow tail black cockatoos do this.Do you know if this is true?One of the trees is only 2m tall and they have gone half way through the trunk, chipping away bits of the bark. Thank you. Judy and Sandy Buchan
Yes, Yellow-tailed Black-Cockatoos will rip through tree trunks and branches. If you have a closer look you might see where they have extracted wood boring grubs. I once saw great "destruction" of a patch of snow gums, branches were on the ground everywhere, all chewed off by the cockies, but you could also see the hollow groove in the fallen branch where the grub had been chewing, and that's what the cockies were after. How the cockies know just where to chew is another matter!
Vicki Powys
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