Blue eyed cockatoo skin#

In most cases, Yellow-crested is most likely to be confused with Sulphur-crested. IUCN classifies it as critically endangered, following a precipitous decline from having been a common, widespread species in the mid-1900s. There is some variation within and among the natural populations-in particular, bill size seems to vary significantly. The Yellow-crested Cockatoo comprises somewhere between three and six subspecies (not including “Citron-crested”), each with fragmentary, depleted populations that inhabit isolated islands in eastern Indonesia and adjacent Timor-Leste. Sulphur-crested has been widely introduced and apparently viable populations are established in New Zealand (both North and South Islands), with potentially viable ones in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. However, small numbers are kept in captivity elsewhere, and apparent escapees have been reported from other islands in the Bismarck Archipelago (mainly on New Ireland). There are no known introduced populations of Blue-eyed, so it remains mostly isolated within its native range on New Britain.

Blue eyed cockatoo skin#

Blue-eyed is named for its characteristic orbital skin coloration, but this distinction is only partly reliable for identification because the “Triton Cockatoo” typically has bluish orbital skin (and northern Australian populations of Sulphur-crested reportedly sometimes show this as well). Blue-eyed’s crest also tends to be a paler shade of yellow than the others, but the shades vary somewhat in all three species.

On four forms the yellow feathers curl up and forward, whereas on Blue-eyed the yellow feathers curl down and backward. All five forms have yellow-and-white crests that consist of a white “shield” at the front with several yellow feathers behind. Blue-eyed differs fundamentally from the others in the shape of its crest.