Galah

Description

The galah (Eolophus roseicapilla), also known as the pink and grey cockatoo or rose-breasted cockatoo, is the only species within genus Eolophus of the cockatoo family. Found throughout Australia, it is among the most common of the cockatoos. With its distinctive pink and grey plumage and its bold and loud behaviour, it is a familiar sight in the wild and increasingly in urban areas. It has benefited from the change in the landscape since European colonisation, and appears to be replacing the Major Mitchell's cockatoo in parts of its range. The term galah is derived from gilaa, a word found in Yuwaalaraay and neighbouring Aboriginal languages. The galah is about 35 cm (14 in) in length, and weighs 270–350 g (10–12 oz). It has a pale silver to grey back, a pale grey rump, a pink face and breast, and a light pink mobile crest. It has a bone-coloured beak, and the bare skin of the eye ring is carunculated. It has grey legs. The sexes appear similar; however, adult birds differ in the colour of the irises; the male has very dark brown (almost black) irises and the female has mid-brown or red irises. Adults are more brightly coloured than juveniles. Juveniles have a greyish breast, crown, and crest, and brown irises with whitish non-carunculated eye rings. The galah can be found throughout Australia, and is absent only from the driest areas and the far north of Cape York Peninsula. Though the presence of the galah has been documented in Tasmania at least since the 1840s, it remains unclear whether it is indigenous to that island. It is common in metropolitan areas such as Adelaide, Perth, and Melbourne, and abundant in open habitats that offer at least some scattered trees for shelter. It is common in all habitats in its range except for dense forests, especially those with a large amount of rainfall. The changes brought by European settlement a disaster for many species have been highly beneficial for the galah because of the clearing of forests in fertile areas and the provision of stock-watering points in arid zones. While it is mostly found in inland areas, the galah is rapidly colonizing coastal regions.