Glossy Black-Cockatoo - Calyptorhynchus lathami

Glossy Black-Cockatoos are the smallest black cockatoo species, so they're a minority both in the cultural and biomass sense of the word. Glossy Black-Cockatoos always lose cockatoo family tug-of-wars, as well as being hired after their predominantly white, Sulphur-crested cousins.

The Glossy Black-Cockatoo is threatened with extinction, currently ranked 'Vulnerable', one notch below 'Endangered' - about as comforting as being told you're going to have your kneecaps involuntarily removed in an hour rather than in five minutes. Admittedly, glossies (as they're confectionately known) are almost biologically inviting death when living on a landmass inhabited by human beings, in that they only feed on the seeds of Casuarina and Allocasuarina trees. Any clearing of those trees in glossy habitat is like watching somebody pull out the tablecloth from beneath all the table settings, leaving the table settings intact - only without the leaving of all the table settings intact.

Male and female Glossy Black-Cockatoos can be told apart by the yellow facial patches of females (second image). This gets tricky when male birds get Patchy Face Jaundice (optimistically assuming that exists). Alternatively, males can be distinguished by more prominent and fluffy chin and crest feathers. This too gets tricky when my male image (top) completely fails to demonstrate these properties. Finally, the twin solid red patches (top image) on the tail of the male sets them apart from the barred red tail of the female. That's not funny, it's just practical.

Finally, here's a parting piece of cinema on these magnificent, and threatened, parrots: