With so many beautiful and boisterous birds in Australia it’s very easy to take the common ones for granted. Galahs are a great case in point, however we do this at our own peril.
Galahs are one of the most widespread, well known and well-loved Australian birds. They are of course cockatoos and feature a large hooked beak, zygodactyl feet and an above average intelligence. Their soft pink and grey hues are a feature of Australian bush and parklands, especially as they wheel and turn in small flocks.
They are found in almost all Australian habitats – except the very dry interior and rainforests. They are now widespread in Tasmania, but didn’t originally occur there, and were introduced from the second half of the nineteenth century onwards. They are prolific seed eaters but when seen on grasslands they are in fact usually eating the rhizomes and thick stems of the grass. They are usually found in pairs and small family groups, but after breeding season adult birds, along with fledglings and unmated birds from previous seasons, can form large flocks of several hundred birds.
In southern Australia they breed in winter and spring, and summer and autumn in northern Australia. They nest in tree hollows anywhere from a few metres to twenty metres off the ground and have two to six chicks at a time. Only about ten percent of the chicks will survive to be able to breed themselves – which happens once they’re around three to four years old. As intelligent birds they form strong pair bonds and one bird will mourn for at least six months if its partner is killed.
The hollows they require to breed take around a hundred years or more to form. For all these reasons it was quite distressing to recently see two galahs at a nesting hollow in Highfields, frantically looking around whilst the habitat all around them was being bulldozed – and soon their tree was knocked down as well. The footage of this went viral online and caused quite stir.
Humans of course need homes, as well as galahs, and it’s just incredible to think that our public and private institutions cannot find a way to make that happen. When the solutions are clear for all to see.
Perhaps what’s not so clear to some is why it’s important: put simply it’s the animals and plants on this planet that create the conditions that allow us to survive, and thinking we can keep destroying those conditions and everything will be fine is beyond illogical. Galahs may be common now, but so too once were Passenger pigeons in the United States of America. In the early nineteenth century there were flocks so large they stretched for miles. They were the most abundant bird in northern America and numbered around four billion individuals. By the early twentieth century they were extinct. It is a very real proposition that the same fate could befall not just galahs, but human beings. There is no other result that the wanton destruction of our life support system can bring. I don’t think anyone lacks the intelligence to see that, but they may lack the courage to.
Galahs then are a beautiful reminder of not just the beauty of life but the fragility of it as well – and how we all have a vested interest in preserving it.
(And now here’s some videos of Galahs in happier times…)
This article first appeared in the Crows Post, October 2025