Cockatiel

Name and taxonomy

J. F. Gmelin described the bird in 1788 as Psittacus novaehollandiae. Robert Kerr renamed it Psittacus hollandicus in 1792. Wagler moved it into a genus of its own, Nymphicus, in 1832. Early travellers thought the birds beautiful and named them after nymphs. The species name hollandicus preserves New Holland, the old European name for Australia. Australians also call the bird a weero or a quarrion.

The cockatiel is the only living species in its genus. Its place among the parrots stayed unsettled for a long time. Some authors once filed it with the broad-tailed parrots. Molecular work settled the question and placed it inside the cockatoo family. It now holds a subfamily of its own, the Nymphicinae. No other cockatoo carries a long tapering tail like this one.

Evolution and relatives

A protein study in 1984 showed the cockatiel is closer to cockatoos than to other parrots. Mitochondrial sequence data place it near the dark cockatoos. One nuclear gene suggests it stands far enough apart to keep a subfamily of its own. The bird carries every trait that defines the cockatoo family.

Those traits are an erectile crest, a gallbladder, powder down, and feathers over the sides of the bill. It also lacks the feather layer that makes blue and green in other parrots. The long tail is the odd feature, and it follows from a drop in body size. A cockatiel has bred successfully with a galah, which supports that placement. Keepers call the hybrids galatiels. The cockatiel therefore sits inside the cockatoos and yet a little apart from them.

Appearance

The wild plumage is grey, with a white flash along the outer edge of each wing. A round orange patch sits over each ear. The male has a yellow or white face, while the face of the female stays grey. The orange is bright on an adult male and muted on a female. Feathers in the cheek patch are shaped to protect the ear and to smooth the airflow. Chicks and young birds look like the female until the first moult. They show yellow bars under the tail and yellow spots on the flight feathers.

The tail is long, tapers to a point, and makes up about half the total length. It measures about 15 centimetres. The crest holds several dozen feathers and stands about 5 cm tall. The bill is dark grey and the legs are blackish grey. Both sexes have dark brown eyes. The wingspan runs 30 to 35 centimetres and reaches 40 cm at most.

Habitat and range

Cockatiels hold the Australian mainland and reach every mainland state and territory. The wettest corners in the southwest and the southeast hold none at all. They also avoid the deepest Western Australian deserts and Cape York Peninsula. Birds on Tasmania arrived there by accident. The species keeps to arid and semi-arid country, but never far from water.

Open woodland, lightly wooded grassland and the eucalypts along rivers all suit it. Partly cleared farmland works as well. Dense forest is avoided. Sometimes hundreds of birds gather around one waterhole.

The birds are nomadic and follow food and water. In the wetter north they move without a fixed pattern. In the south the weather is steadier, so flocks migrate on a schedule. Groups of one hundred to one thousand travel together there. Summer heat above 43 degrees Celsius and winter nights near 4.5 degrees are both normal. The bird appears in 90 countries on GBIF, because pet birds escape everywhere.

Diet and feeding

Cockatiels feed almost entirely on the ground. Dry seed is the main food, taken from grasses, shrubs and trees. Acacia seed is the favourite, and flocks are thickest where acacia grows. Wheat, sorghum and sunflower are eaten too, to the annoyance of farmers. Soft fruit and berries go down as well. The birds also pick small insects off the ground. Cockatiels sometimes take seed straight from a branch. A flock several thousand strong can strip a grain field.

The curved upper bill shucks a husk in a few seconds. The tongue turns the seed while the bill cuts it open. Long toes spread wide and make a stable foot for walking. A feeding flock stays silent. Birds drink fast at a pool, take a sip or two, then lift the head to look around. They make water inside the body as they burn food, so they can go a long time without drinking.

Behaviour and social life

Cockatiels are social all year round. They feed and travel in pairs, in parties of six to eight, or in flocks of several thousand. A pair forms early and stays together outside the breeding season. The birds are timid and take to the air at any threat. They have almost no other defence.

Preening fills much of the day. The bird spreads oil from the preen gland over its outer feathers to keep them dry. That oil carries vitamin D precursors, and sunlight turns them into the vitamin itself. The bird swallows the vitamin at the next preen, and it needs it to take up calcium. Powder down adds a second waterproof layer. A cockatiel that shakes itself after preening throws off a cloud of white dust. The bird works the oil into each outer feather with its bill.

Feathers pull in tight when the bird is frightened and puff out when it is content. They also hold body heat, which matters on a cold inland night. A cockatiel must keep its core above 38 degrees Celsius. A home range can stretch for several miles from the nest tree. Fast flight makes that easy.

Communication and senses

The crest carries the bird's mood. It stands straight up when the bird is startled or excited. It rests at a slant when the bird is calm. It lies flat against the head in anger, and flat again in flight to cut drag. A tired bird holds it halfway up, with the tip curled.

Calls are loud and shrill, and they carry a long way. A high chirp signals stress, and the pitch tracks how bad the trouble is. A lower cry means a small problem, while a higher one comes with flight. Males sing longer and more varied songs, above all in the breeding season. Captive cockatiels copy melodies, alarm clocks, telephones and birds outside the window. Some have learned to keep time with a person singing.

Reproduction and life cycle

Rain sets the breeding season going. Most nesting falls between August and December. Pairs stay together all year, so no time goes on finding a mate. A female signals readiness with muffled peeps and a raised tail. A male whistles a song, struts, holds his wings out and drums with his bill.

The pair nests in a large tree hollow, usually in a dead eucalypt. The hollow sits about one to two metres above the ground and close to fresh water. A cracked dry snag is preferred, because it drains after heavy rain. The male checks the cavity for danger before the female goes in. A pair often claims a whole tree.

The hen lays four to seven eggs, one every other day. Both birds incubate for 17 to 23 days. The male sits from early morning until late afternoon, and the female covers the night. Both parents feed the chicks by passing food beak to beak. The young leave the hollow at about five weeks. Males can breed at 13 months and females at 18 months, which is fast for a cockatoo.

Predators and threats

Australian birds of prey are the main danger. A raptor takes the bird from above while it feeds on the ground. Grey plumage hides a feeding cockatiel well, above all in shade. A flock relies on many eyes, and one shrill call sends the whole group up. Speed in the air is the real escape. A large group also spreads the watching between many pairs of eyes.

A cornered bird will bite, and the beak breaks skin easily. Nesting birds bite an intruder that reaches into the hollow. Bacteria and gut parasites cause losses as well. Giardia and Cryptosporidium bring weight loss, poor droppings and death. Queensland has had open seasons on the bird in the past. Pesticides are still used to keep flocks off crop fields.

Population and conservation

The IUCN lists the cockatiel as Least Concern. Nobody has counted the wild population. The range is very large and the birds are dense across the mainland. No threat has been identified for the species as a whole. Numbers probably rise and fall with the rain, because rain drives breeding. Naturalists have logged 6,297 records on iNaturalist.

Australian law protects the bird in general terms. The pet trade takes captive-bred birds rather than wild ones. There are 22 established colour mutations in aviculture worldwide. Eight of them exist only in Australia. Captive breeding probably keeps trade pressure off the wild flocks. One bird can carry several mutations at once, such as pearling on a lutino.

Relationship with humans

The cockatiel is among the most common pet birds anywhere. An estimated 4.8 million households in the United States keep one. In one survey of American bird keepers, 39 percent had a cockatiel. Only 3 percent kept any other kind of cockatoo. The bird is tame, quiet by parrot standards, and long-lived.

Care is harder than most buyers expect. A cockatiel needs company, a proper diet, toys, perches of different widths and daylight. It also needs about two hours out of the cage each day. Owners who miss this leave birds underfed and badly behaved. Many birds reach a shelter within about 1.5 years of purchase. The powder down brings on hay fever and lung trouble in some keepers.

In Australia the bird is also a crop pest. Flocks of several thousand raid sorghum, millet, wheat and sunflower fields. Research colonies keep cockatiels for work on nutrition and behaviour. One such colony in California has trained many students.

In culture and myth

The genus name records a European reaction rather than an Australian one. The travellers who first met the bird compared it to a nymph. Two Australian names, weero and quarrion, come from Aboriginal languages. The English name probably follows the cockatoo, which the bird resembles in miniature.

Breeders have turned the cockatiel into a show animal. The National Cockatiel Society runs regular shows and competitions. Selected birds sell for high prices. The pied mutation appeared in California in 1949. Lutino birds followed in 1958, and pearled birds in 1967. Colour names such as cinnamon, fallow, whiteface and platinum now fill breeders' catalogues. Australian breeders keep several forms that have never left the country.