Welcome
The Cockatoo Specialist - John McGrath
I started with birds like a lot of people hand raising Rosellas and Magpies that my parents bought home to me on the family farm. I was introduced to the New South Wales Bird Show Circuit as a kid through meeting members of the Yass Bird Club, those connections broaden my knowledge of the birds available in Aviculture as well at that time my Contact Networking began, some of the people that befriended me in those early days of the 1960s I am still in contact with today.
The Show Circuit took me all over NSW through the 1960s and into the 1970s also. As a result of those experiences I am sometimes called onto judge birds, especially the Large Parrots at Bird Shows.
During my career with birds I have kept and successfully bred a wide variety of both finches and parrot species, both Australian and Exotic, during the 1980s I started to settle on working with the Australian White Cockatoo Subspecies as well as a unique Cockatoo the Gang Gang. None of these birds are easy to reproduce for a variety of reasons, including long term compatibility of a seemingly bonded pair. That is one partner can be “slaughtered” by the other swiftly for no apparent reason
Weather can play a big part in some of these cockatoos, breeding for instance lack of rain may delay a hen producing eggs, or and like with all Avicultural subjects a cold snap will kill chicks in the nest from hypothermia, like wise if a sitting bird gets a “night fright” on a cold night dead in the shell/frozen chicks are the result. Several of my Northern subspecies of Cockatoos will start to produce a clutch of eggs here as early as the beginning of July, when we are still experiencing very cold temperatures, so mishaps can occur.
So if a chick “slips” behind it will soon perish from lack of nourishment/hypothermia so a constant monitoring of the nest boxes is the order of the day, twice daily checks are required. That starts from the laying of the first egg through to fledge, my birds are used to this although they still can be aggressive towards me, protecting their nests and its contents. Nest monitoring occurs right through the Spring time here as we can experience sudden dramatic temperature drops, right up until Christmas time.
All members of the group of Cockatoos that I hold are long lived intelligent birds and deserve years of dedication to get them to reproduce, for my nesting receptacles I use almost exclusively PVC Nests as produced by John Galea from Horsley West of Sydney.
Working with Cockatoo subspecies has gained me more contacts and now some of these contacts are International, I broaden my horizons by travelling too Bird Sales, across NSW, and by attending Avicultural Conventions across the country, such as the biannual AVES Convention, held in Grafton, promoted by the Northern Rivers Avicultural Society the Parrot Conventions held in Brisbane promoted by the Parrot Society of Australia Queensland Inc. I have also attended the last two AFA Conventions held in Canberra and Perth WA respectively.
I hold membership to Avicultural Societies across Australia, in States including NSW. Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia as well as The Avicultural Society of Canberra Inc. where not only have been honoured with Life Membership but at the time of writing this I hold the position of President.
I believe that I do my part to promote Aviculture by assisting the Societies that I hold membership to by writing articles on my experiences for them, as well as being available to help if I can by having three Power Point Presentations that I can do at their meetings, one on “My History and Aviary Management” which can be an eye opener to those of you that don’t endure the climate that we suffer in our local region, the second is “Australian White Cockatoo Subspecies” and thirdly a presentation on “Gang Gangs” a species that I have worked with since 1978!
Over the years I have been invited todo presentations at Avicultural Society Meetings in all the Australian Eastern States. Some of my writings have been not only printed in the Avicultural Society Publications, but in the major, commercial Avicultural Publications like the Australian Bird Keeper Magazine, Australian Aviary Life, the former Pet and Aviary Bird Magazine, as well as Talking Birds.
I have also been honoured too have had some of my articles published in Overseas Publications, such as the American Federation of Aviculture’s AFA Watchbird during the late 1990s, late 2009 and early 2010 respectively I have had my Article on Short Billed Corellas published in Canada’s Parrot Life Magazine, and also published in Dutch in the Dutch Parakeet Society Magazine.
I am looking forward to the publication in Autumn 2011 in Czechoslovakia of my Major Mitchell article in one of their magazines, it will be published in Czech, this article was printed in Australia by the Parrot Society of Australia Queensland Inc. in their Parrot News during 2010. I have also been acknowledged, by the publishers of Australian Bird Keeper “A Guide to Series” and Singil Press’s series on Australian Parrots/Cockatoos using my information for two each of their respective publications.
Of the close to twenty subspecies of Australian White Cockatoos, I have successfully captive bred ten of those, I am still learning and collecting information on additional subspecies of these birds, I have successfully bred Gang Gangs to second generation. I have settled on this collection of birds as I enjoy working with them and the rapport that I hold with them!
