A cockatiel's crest broadcasts its mood like a feathered dial
Watch the crest of a cockatiel and you can read its feelings. Straight up means startled or excited, a gentle slant means relaxed, and flat against the head means angry or defensive. Held flat but sticking out at the back, it signals flirting, and a tired bird lifts it halfway with the tip curled.
The cockatiel is the smallest member of the cockatoo family, 30 to 33 centimetres long, with tail feathers making up about half that length. Its long tail once led naturalists to wonder whether it was a parakeet, but molecular studies settled the matter: it shares the crest, powder down and other traits found almost only in cockatoos, and one documented hybrid with a galah has even been recorded. Its genus name, Nymphicus, comes from early European visitors who found the birds so beautiful they named them after mythical nymphs.
Wild cockatiels roam Australia's dry interior, always near water, moving nomadically after food and sometimes gathering by the hundreds at a single pool. They eat seeds, and to farmers' irritation, crops too. Breeding follows the rains: a hen lays four to seven eggs in a tree hollow, and cockatiels are the only cockatoos that may breed before the end of their first year.
Chicks of both sexes look much alike until their first moult. Then, in the familiar grey form, males lose the melanin masking their faces, so yellow and orange pigments shine through, including the bright 'cheddar cheek' patches, while more melanin in their tails erases the juvenile yellow bars. Breeders have since established 22 colour mutations, starting with a pied bird in California in 1949. Some lutinos, the pale yellow type, carry a small bald patch behind the crest, a legacy of inbreeding.
Popularity has a downside. An estimated 4.8 million US households keep cockatiels, but they need daily interaction, a proper diet, varied perches and about two hours outside the cage, and many are surrendered within roughly 1.5 years. Well kept, they can live 16 to 25 years, learning phrases, mimicking alarm clocks and even singing melodies in time with their owners.
Source: Cockatiel
