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~ Cockatiels ~
The Cockatiel (Nymphicus hollandicus) is a
diminutive cockatoo endemic to Australia and prized as a household pet.
The cockatiel (also recognized as the Quarrion
and the Weero)is a small parrot relating to both the Psittacidae and the
Cacatuidae families. Like other cockatoos, as for example the Sulphur-crested
Cockatoo, the cockatiel has an erectible crest. Cockatiels and cockatoos in
general also share other features, such as the facial feathers covering the
sides of the beak, which are rarely - if ever - found outside the Cacatuidae
family. In contrast to most cockatoos, the cockatiel has long tail feathers,
roughly making up half of its total length. These feathered friends originate
from the outback regions of inland Australia, and favors the Aussie wetlands,
scrublands, and bush lands. The cockatiel's distinctive pointed yellow crest
is held erect when startled or excited, while a crest slightly tilted
indicates a relaxed state of mind.
The plumage is generally mid-grey, lighter
underneath, with an almost perfectly round orange patch of feathers covering
the ear opening (usually referred to as a "cheek patch") and a prominent white
blaze on the wings. A row of yellowish spots can be found underneath the wings
of female cockatiels, but not on the males. Some other mutations exist, such
as the Lutino, which lacks black and grey color, being a light yellow colour
overall. Female Lutinos also have barred tail feathers. Both the cock and the
hen have yellow facial feathers: the female has a yellow wash around the beak
and eye, in the male, yellow covers most of the head and the fore part of the
crest. Male cockatiels are very protective and nurturing of their offspring
and are known to be very capable of raising their newborns if the mother is
unable to.
Cockatiel lifespans in captivity are generally given as 15-20 years, though it
is sometimes given as short as 12-15 years and there are anecdotes of
cockatiels living as long as 30 years, the oldest reported being 36 years old
when it died.
This is the only species in its genus Nymphicus.
Its relationships were long disputed; it was usually placed into a monotypic
subfamily Nymphicinae or even allied with the broad-tailed parrots. But while
most other cockatoos are 500 mm to 600 mm in length, cockatiels are normally
300 mm to 330 mm. There are several significant characteristics that ally
cockatiels with cockatoos though, including an erectile crest, a gallbladder,
and powder down patches.
The cockatiel's scientific name Nymphicus hollandicus reflects the experience
of one of the earliest groups of Europeans to see cockatiels in their native
habitat. Travellers thought they were so beautiful that they named them after
the mythical creatures, the nymphs (Nymphicus means literally "little nymph").
The species name refers to New Holland, an old name for Australia.
Cockatiels are native only to Australia where they are found largely in arid
or semi-arid country, but always near water. Sometimes hundreds will flock
around a single such body of water. To farmers dismay, they often eat crop.
They are absent from the most fertile southwest and southeast corners of the
country, the deepest Western Australian deserts, and Cape York Peninsula. They
are the only cockatoo species that can breed in their first year.
Cockatiels are popular household pets in many
parts of the world. They are actually the 2nd most popular bird species kept
today, budgies being the first. Today all pet
cockatiels are bred in captivity, as Australia no longer permits the export of
native wildlife, whether endangered or not. Pet cockatiels have been bred to
have many different colorations (called mutations). Mutations include lutino,
pearl, cinnamon, pied, fallow, recessive and dominant silver, whiteface,
pastelface, yellowcheek, and olive or 'spangled.'
Mutations can appear both individually or in a wide variety of combinations
such as lutino pearl, whiteface pied, and whiteface lutino (which is often
called albino, but is not a true form of albinism). Still fairly hard to find
is the rather new 'olive' mutation. An olive cockatiel does not actually have
green pigment to its plumage, but rather an overlapping pattern of yellow and
grey that create the illusion of a greenish cast.
Many mutations retain the black eyes, beak, nails and grey feet of the normal
grey cockatiels, however the lutino, cinnamon and fallow mutations have pink
to deep plum red eyes, pink toenails and feet, and a horn coloured beak. While
most mutations persist into adulthood for all cockatiels, certain mutations
like pearl are molted out in the males and retained in the adult females.
Sex-linked mutations such as lutino and cinnamon have a higher ratio of female
offspring to male due to the mode of inheritance from parents to offspring.
Some, very rare mutations manage to change the eye colour of the bird to ruby
red, however this is very rare and very few professionals can boast
accomplishing this.
If hand-fed as chicks, cockatiels can form strong bonds with their owners.
Otherwise quiet birds will frequently make contact calls with their owners,
calls that sometimes can be quite loud if the person is out of sight. The
cockatiel can, infact, grow so attached to its owner that it will try to
'protect' the owner from anyone that tries to come near it by biting and
taking it very seriously. Their popularity as pets is in part because of their
calm and timid temperament, to the point that they can even be bullied by
smaller but more confident birds such as Budgerigars. Great care and
supervision should be provided when mixing cockatiels with other birds. It is
not uncommon at all for a larger or smaller bird to maim the cockatiel,
creating life-long disabilities and potentially life threatening injuries.
However, some cockatiels can "scrap."
Although cockatiels are part of the parrot order, they are better at imitating
whistles than speech. Some do learn to repeat phrases, and the males are
generally better at mimicry than the females. Cockatiels can mimic many
sounds, for example the bleep of a car alarm, a ringing telephone, or the
calls of other bird species such as blue jays or chickadees.
This article is licensed under
the GNU Free
Documentation License. It uses material from
Wikipedia.
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