Pink Cockatoo

The pink cockatoo has a soft-textured white and salmon-pink plumage and large, bright red and yellow crest. Its former name referenced Major Thomas Mitchell, who wrote, "Few birds more enliven the monotonous hues of the Australian forest than this beautiful species whose pink-coloured wings and flowing crest might have embellished the air of a more voluptuous region." Pink cockatoo females and males are almost identical. The males are usually bigger. The female has a broader yellow stripe on the crest and develops a red eye when mature.

Reproduction and lifespan. The bird reaches sexual maturity around 3–4 years old. The oldest recorded pink cockatoo died at 83 years old.

In contrast to those of the galah, populations of pink cockatoos have declined rather than increased as a result of man-made changes to the arid interior of Australia. Where galahs readily occupy cleared and part-cleared land, pink cockatoos require extensive woodlands, particularly favouring conifers (Callitris spp.), sheoak (Allocasuarina spp.) and eucalypts. Unlike other cockatoos, pink cockatoo pairs will not nest close to one another, so they cannot tolerate fragmented, partly cleared habitats, and their range is contracting. In the Mallee region of Victoria where the galah and pink cockatoo can be found to be nesting in the same area, the two species have interbred and produced hybridised offspring occasionally. The pink cockatoo is usually found in pairs or small groups, and feeds both on the ground and in trees.

"Cookie" was a pink cockatoo and a beloved resident of Illinois' Brookfield Zoo near Chicago from the time the zoo opened in 1934 until his death on 27 August 2016. Cookie was 83 years old and he had been retired from public display since 2009 due to ill health prior to his death.