The yellow-crested cockatoo (Cacatua sulphurea) also known as the lesser sulphur-crested cockatoo, is a medium-sized (approximately 34 cm long) cockatoo with white plumage, bluish-white bare orbital skin, grey feet, a black bill, and a retractile yellow or orange crest. The sexes are similar. The voice is loud and very raucous. Often gives single harsh screech but also sweeter whistles and squeaky notes.
The yellow-crested cockatoo is found in wooded and cultivated areas of East Timor and Indonesia’s islands of Sulawesi and the Lesser Sundas. It is easily confused with the larger and more common sulphur-crested cockatoo, which has a more easterly distribution and can be distinguished by the lack of pale yellow coloring on its cheeks (although some sulphur-crested develop yellowish patches).
The yellow-crested cockatoo nests in tree cavities. The eggs are white and there are 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 about 75 days after hatching. Its diet consists mainly of seeds, buds, fruits, nuts and herbaceous plants. The species’s favoured foods include male fruits of Artocarpus communis, fruit and flowers of Cocos nucifera (coconut palm), young leaves and flowers of Ceiba petandra, mangroves, and male flowers of Brassus sudaica.
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 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 7,000 individuals and is thought to be declining in number.
Several national parks provide protection of their habitat, including Rawa Aopa Watumohai National Park on Sulawesi, Komodo National Park in Komodo Island, the national parks of Manupeu Tanah Daru and Laiwangi Wanggameti on Sumba as well as the Nino Konis Santana National Park in East Timor.
