The Lesser Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo or Yellow-crested Cockatoo ( Cacatua sulphurea ), also known as the small Sulfur-crested Cockatoo is a species of bird of the order Psittaciformes and family of Cacatuidae.

Description 

It is a parrot of medium size (33 to 35  cm long from beak to tail for a mass of 300 to 400  g depending on the subspecies) all white with a circle of bare, blue skin around the eyes, gray legs, a black bill, and a yellow or orange crest. The male and the female are almost similar since they differ only in the color of the eyes: dark in the male and reddish in the female. They are grayish in the immature.

Lesser sulphur-crested cockatoos as pets

SOURCE:MARLENE MC’COHEN

Natural habitat and origin

It inhabits the woods and fields of East Timor and the Indonesian islands of Bali, Timor, Celebes, and the small Sunda Islands. There is also a colony in Hong Kong which seems to have formed from birds that escaped from aviaries.

Food 

It feeds mainly on seeds, buds, fruits, nuts, and herbs.

Reproduction 

The female lays two or three eggs in the hollow of a tree. Both parents incubate the eggs for 27 or 28 days and then rear the young, which remain in the nest for 10 to 12 weeks.

Subspecies 

This bird is represented by four subspecies:

• sulphurea with a yellow crest and a mass of 300-350  g  ;
• abotti  ;
• citrinocristata with an orange crest and a mass of 350 to 400 g, represented by two forms with a  pale belly and a honey belly, populating the island of Sumba but introduced in Singapore and Hong Kong;
• parvula with less marked yellow ear patch and thinner bill than the nominal subspecies.

Captivity

During reproduction, they must be put in a large aviary because if they are in a small place the male can take the female as an adversary so risks the death of the female.

Cockatoo

SOURCE:MARLENE MC’COHEN

Moluccan cockatoo

Goffins cockatoo

Sulphur crested cockatoo 

The umbrella cockatoo

Red tailed black cockatoo