Call of the Galah Cacatua roseicapilla and some comparisons with four other species of Australian Parrots

Abstract

Calls of the Galah in northern New South Wales were examined. Nine structurally distinct calls and a number of variations of two of these were detected and from the circumstances in which the calls were given it appeared that the Galah had at least twelve functionally distinct calls. Among the five species of parrots examined there are fewer calls associated with location and cohesion of individuals and with intraspecific agonistic behaviour in arid-zone species compared with semi-arid species. It is suggested that this is related to social organization with few such signals being required to maintain the gregarious social systems of the arid-zone species compared to the small group systems of the semi-arid species.