​Male palm cockatoos prefer certain types of percussion tool, which they create themselves from branches and seed pods.

​Not only are male palm cockatoos expert toolmakers and musicians, research shows they pass their knowledge down through generations.

Key points:

• The palm cockatoo is extremely rare and is the only bird in the world that uses a tool musically
• A new study has been examining the drumstick-like tools the birds fashion from wood and seed pods
• Research finds the birds methodically design and decorate drumsticks

​The instruments are part of their mating display and showcase their creativity.

After years of preparation, my PhD student George Olah finally got what he wanted. A special permission from the government of Peru. The 50+ page document gave him access to the Holy Grail of parrot researchers: the Candamo Basin, in the Peruvian Amazon. A place where wildlife exists without any human disturbance since the beginning of times. Surrounded by the foothills of the Andes, the Candamo Basin hosts one of the very few uninhabited tropical rainforest of the world. Not even native tribes had settled here and decades had passed since the last camera team dared to sail the hostile rapids of the Candamo river.

Wildlife Messengers produced a stunning documentary movie, The Macaw Kingdom, about our research expeditions. Watch the trailer below or the full documentary.

​Less than 80 years ago, regent honeyeaters ruled Australia’s flowering gum forests, with huge raucous flocks roaming from Adelaide to Rockhampton.

Now, there are less than 300 birds left in the wild. Habitat loss has pushed the survivors into little pockets across their once vast range.

Sadly, our new research shows these birds are now heading for rapid extinction. Unless we urgently boost conservation efforts, the regent honeyeater will follow the passenger pigeon into oblivion within the next 20 years.

If we let the last few die, the regent honeyeater will be only the second bird extinction on the Australian mainland since European colonisation, following the paradise parrot.

Our new paper was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

Crates R, Langmore N, Ranjard L, Stojanovic D, Rayner L, Ingwersen D, Heinsohn R (2021) Loss of vocal culture and fitness costs in a critically endangered songbird. Proc. R. Soc. B 20210225.

Several major media outlets picked up the study:

• The Conversation
• BBC
• Nature
• The New York Times
• The Guardian
• Australian Geographic
• ABC News
• Sky News
• Daily Mail

​Palm cockatoos, the focal species of our newest paper published in Biological Conservation, are featured in the BBC News.

A video abstract of the peer-reviewed paper "Comparison of three techniques for genetic estimation of effective population size in a critically endangered parrot" published in Animal Conservation (2020).
doi:10.1111/ACV.12655
Authors: Olah G & Stojanovic D, Webb MH, Waples R, Heinsohn R.

​A video abstract of our peer-reviewed paper “Parrots of Oceania – A comparative study of extinction risk” published in Emu – Austral Ornithology (2018)
doi:10.1080/01584197.2017.1410066
Authors: George Olah, Jörn Theuerkauf, Andrew Legault, Roman Gula, John Stein, Stuart Butchart, Mark O’Brien, Robert Heinsohn