Last Thursday, with the essential help of a biologist from the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment we made contact with a large mob (about 50) of these cockatoos feeding in a State Forest on Brown Stringybark. This subspecies
has a significant part in COG’s own story. It was first described by Dick Schodde in our own Canberra Bird Notes for December 1988 with the co-operation of Philip Veerman as editor. The background to that unusual state of affairs is set out in CBN for December
1989. The name chosen by Dick was ‘graptogyne’ coming from the Greek for ‘Painted Lady’, the reason being that the female is the most colourful of all Australia’s redtail subspecies. In the below I have enhanced a flying female (if not an immature bird)
to underline the point. Coincidentally the hues are remarkably similar to another painted lady, this one from the ANBG.
