The yellow-crested cockatoo (''Cacatua sulphurea'') also known as the lesser sulphur-crested cockatoo, is a medium-sized (about 34-cm-long)

cockatoo A cockatoo is any of the 21 parrot species belonging to the family Cacatuidae, the only family in the superfamily Cacatuoidea. Along with the Psittacoidea (true parrots) and the Strigopoidea (large New Zealand parrots), they make up the ord ...

with white

plumage Plumage ( "feather") is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, ...

, bluish-white bare orbital skin, grey feet, a black

bill Bill(s) may refer to: Common meanings * Banknote, paper cash (especially in the United States) * Bill (law), a proposed law put before a legislature * Invoice, commercial document issued by a seller to a buyer * Bill, a bird or animal's beak Plac ...

, and a retractile yellow or orange

crest Crest or CREST may refer to: Buildings *The Crest (Huntington, New York), a historic house in Suffolk County, New York *"The Crest", an alternate name for 63 Wall Street, in Manhattan, New York *Crest Castle (Château Du Crest), Jussy, Switzerla ...

. The sexes are similar. The yellow-crested cockatoo is found in wooded and cultivated areas of

East Timor East Timor (), also known as Timor-Leste (), officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is an island country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-weste ...

and

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

's islands of

Sulawesi Sulawesi (), also known as Celebes (), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's eleventh-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu Ar ...

and the

Lesser Sundas The Lesser Sunda Islands or nowadays known as Nusa Tenggara Islands ( id, Kepulauan Nusa Tenggara, formerly ) are an archipelago in Maritime Southeast Asia, north of Australia. Together with the Greater Sunda Islands to the west they make up ...

. It is easily confused with the largerBirdLife Species Factsheet
retrieved 10 February 2010 and more common

sulphur-crested cockatoo The sulphur-crested cockatoo (''Cacatua galerita'') is a relatively large white cockatoo found in wooded habitats in Australia, New Guinea, and some of the islands of Indonesia. They can be locally very numerous, leading to them sometimes being ...

, which has a more easterly distribution and can be distinguished by the lack of pale yellow coloring on its cheeks (although some sulphur-cresteds develop yellowish patches). Also, the yellow-crested cockatoo's crest is a brighter color, closer to orange. The

citron-crested cockatoo The citron-crested cockatoo (''Cacatua sulphurea citrinocristata'') is a medium-sized cockatoo with an orange Crest (feathers), crest, dark grey beak, pale orange ear patches, and strong feet and claws. The underside of the larger wing and tail ...

, which is a subspecies of the yellow-crested cockatoo, is similar, but its crest is clearly orange. The yellow-crested cockatoo's diet consists mainly of seeds,

bud In botany, a bud is an undeveloped or embryonic shoot and normally occurs in the axil of a leaf or at the tip of a stem. Once formed, a bud may remain for some time in a dormant condition, or it may form a shoot immediately. Buds may be spec ...

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particu ...

s, nuts, and

herbaceous plants Herbaceous plants are vascular plants that have no persistent woody stems above ground. This broad category of plants includes many perennials, and nearly all annuals and biennials. Definitions of "herb" and "herbaceous" The fourth edition of t ...

Taxonomy

According to the International Ornithological Congress, 6

subspecies In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...

have been recognized: * ''C. s. sulphurea'' (

nominate subspecies In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...

) ( Gmelin, JF, 1788) – Sulawesi and nearby smaller islands * ''C. s. abbotti'' (Abbott's yellow-crested cockatoo) ( Oberholser, 1917) –

Masalembu Islands The Masalembu Islands (Indonesian:''Kepulauan Mesalembu'') lie in the Java Sea to the north of Madura, about halfway between Madura and Borneo. They administratively form Masalembu District (''kecamatan'') of Sumenep Regency of Madura, in th ...

* ''C. s. djampeana'' Hartert, E, 1897 –

Tanah Jampea Tanah Jampea, also variously known as Tanah Djampea, Tanahjampea, Jampea Island and Pulau Jampea, is the second largest island of the Selayar Islands group in Indonesia’s South Sulawesi Province. The group lies in the Flores Sea between the m ...

* ''C. s. occidentalis'' Hartert, E, 1898 – Lesser Sundas from

Lombok Lombok is an island in West Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia. It forms part of the chain of the Lesser Sunda Islands, with the Lombok Strait separating it from Bali to the west and the Alas Strait between it and Sumbawa to the east. It is rou ...

to Alor (thereby restricting ''C. p. parvula'' to Timor) * ''C. s. parvula'' (Timor yellow-crested cockatoo) ( Bonaparte, 1850) – Sumbawa,

Komodo Komodo may refer to: Computers * Komodo Edit, a free text editor for dynamic programming languages * Komodo IDE an integrated development environment (IDE) for dynamic programming languages * Komodo (chess), a chess engine People * Komodo ...

Flores Flores is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, a group of islands in the eastern half of Indonesia. Including the Komodo Islands off its west coast (but excluding the Solor Archipelago to the east of Flores), the land area is 15,530.58 km2, and th ...

Timor Timor is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, in the north of the Timor Sea. The island is East Timor–Indonesia border, divided between the sovereign states of East Timor on the eastern part and Indonesia on the western p ...

, and various other islands in the Lesser Sundas * ''C. s. citrinocristata'' (

) (

Fraser Fraser may refer to: Places Antarctica * Fraser Point, South Orkney Islands Australia * Fraser, Australian Capital Territory, a suburb in the Canberra district of Belconnen * Division of Fraser (Australian Capital Territory), a former federal ele ...

, 1844) –

Sumba Sumba ( id, Pulau Sumba) is an island in eastern Indonesia. It is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands and is in the province of East Nusa Tenggara. Sumba has an area of , and the population was 779,049 at the 2020 Census; the official estimate as a ...

Previously, only 4 of these were recognized, but ''djampeana'' and ''occidentalis'' were recognized in 2022 based on a 2014 phylogenetic study. The subspecies ''paulandrewi'', thought to be endemic to the

Tukangbesi Islands Tukangbesi Islands, is a group of islands off the coast of Sulawesi immediately east of Buton island in the Banda Sea region, and part of Sulawesi Tenggara. "Tukang Besi" literally means "iron worker" or "blacksmith" in Indonesian. There is a T ...

and also recognized in the 2014 study, is not recognized by the IOC.

Breeding

The yellow-crested cockatoo nests in tree cavities. The eggs are white and usually two in a clutch. The incubation is shared by both parents. The eggs are incubated for about 28 days and the chicks leave the

nest A nest is a structure built for certain animals to hold eggs or young. Although nests are most closely associated with birds, members of all classes of vertebrates and some invertebrates construct nests. They may be composed of organic materia ...

about 75 days after hatching.

Status and conservation

The yellow-crested cockatoo is critically endangered. Numbers have declined dramatically due to illegal trapping for the cage-bird trade. Between 1980 and 1992, over 100,000 of these birds were legally exported from Indonesia, yet a German proposal submitted to

CITES CITES (shorter name for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as the Washington Convention) is a multilateral treaty to protect endangered plants and animals from the threats of interna ...

to move it to Appendix I was not approved. It has since been moved to Appendix I. The current population is estimated at fewer than 2,500 individuals and is thought to be declining in number. The subspecies ''C. s. abbotti'' is found only on the island of Masakambing. Its population on this tiny island (about 5 km² or 1.9 mi²) had fallen to 10 as of June and July 2008. The decline results from trapping and logging, especially of mangrove (''

Avicennia ''Avicennia'' is a genus of flowering plants currently placed in the bear's breeches family, Acanthaceae. It contains mangrove trees, which occur in the intertidal zones of estuarine areas and are characterized by its "pencil roots", which are a ...

apiculata'') and kapok trees. Several national parks provide protection of their habitat, including Rawa Aopa Watumohai National Park on Sulawesi,

Komodo National Park Komodo National Park (Indonesian: ''Taman Nasional Komodo'') is a national park in Indonesia located within the Lesser Sunda Islands in the border region between the provinces of East Nusa Tenggara and West Nusa Tenggara. The park includes the ...

on Komodo Island, the national parks of Manupeu Tanah Daru and Laiwangi Wanggameti on Sumba, and the

Nino Konis Santana National Park The Nino Konis Santana National Park is East Timor's first national park. The park, established on 15 August 2007, covers . It links important bird areas such as Lore, Mount Paitchau, Lake Ira Lalaro, and Jaco Island. The park also includes o ...

in East Timor (Timor-Leste).

Introduced population

An introduced population of these birds is found in

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

. They are a common sight across the densely populated area on both sides of the harbour, easily spotted in the woods and public parks in the north and west of Hong Kong Island. The large group has apparently developed from a number of caged birds that have been released into the Hong Kong area over many years. An often repeated story is that Hong Kong Governor Sir

Mark Aitchison Young Sir Mark Aitchison Young (楊慕琦, 30 June 1886 – 12 May 1974) was a British administrator who became the Governor of Hong Kong during the years immediately before and after the Japanese occupation of the territory. Early life, service in ...

released the Government House's entire bird collection – including a large number of yellow-crested cockatoos – hours before surrendering Hong Kong to Japanese troops in December 1941. Historians and conservation biologists in Hong Kong have found no evidence to corroborate this story, and believe that Hong Kong's yellow-crested cockatoo population is made up of escaped pets. The earliest record of an escaped pet yellow-crested cockatoo comes from 1959.

References

External links

* ARKive
images and movies of the yellow-crested cockatoo ''(Cacatua sulphurea)''

mytoos.com - information on cockatoos in captivity

* ttp://www.rdb.or.id/detailbird.php?id=48 Red Data Book {{Taxonbar, from=Q372906

yellow-crested cockatoo The yellow-crested cockatoo (''Cacatua sulphurea'') also known as the lesser sulphur-crested cockatoo, is a medium-sized (about 34-cm-long) cockatoo with white plumage, bluish-white bare orbital skin, grey feet, a black bill, and a retractile y ...

Feral parrots Birds of Sulawesi Birds of the Lesser Sunda Islands