Page 16 - BBC Focus - August 2017

DISCOVERIES
DISCOVERIES

Dave the cockatoo had
been practising for his
Counting Crows audition

ZO O L O G Y

COCKATOOS GOT RHYTHM

Birds might generally be better known for their School of Environment and Society analysed
singing, but new research carried out by Prof seven years’ worth of footage of 18 male
Rob Heinsohn from the Australian National cockatoos, and found that all 18 of the birds
University (ANU) has proved they can also be a drummed regularly.
dab hand on the drums. “The large smoky-grey parrots fashion thick
The palm cockatoo – also known as the goliath sticks from branches, grip them with their feet
or great black cockatoo – is native to New Guinea and bang them on trunks and tree hollows, all
and to Australia’s Cape York Peninsula, an area the while displaying to females,” said Heinsohn. PHOTOS: C ZDENEK, CHRISTINE DANILOFF/MIT ILLUSTRATION: DANIEL BRIGHT
of untamed wilderness in the far north of “The icing on the cake is that the taps are almost
Queensland. It was here that Heinsohn’s team perfectly spaced over very long sequences, just
were, for the first time, able to capture enough like a human drummer would do.”
film of the reclusive species’ drumming What’s more, each cockatoo was found to have
behaviour, which had previously been reported its own signature style, with some drumming
anecdotally, for serious study. The footage was faster or slower, and others introducing
obtained as part of a wider study into the bird’s distinctive flourishes to the otherwise regular
conservation needs. beat. It’s thought that this enables other
Heinsohn and his team at the ANU Fenner cockatoos to determine who is drumming where.

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