Editing Cockatoo (section)

===Diet and feeding===
[[File:Cacatua tenuirostris -Joondalup-8-3c.jpg|left|thumb|Wild [[long-billed corella]]s in [[Perth]]. The bird on the right is using its long beak to dig for food in short grass.|alt=Two mainly white-plumaged cockatoos on what appears to be a lawn. One cockatoo is standing upright and has a long upper mandible and orange-pink feathers its face and chest. The other cockatoo has its head in the grass with its bill not visible.]]
Cockatoos are versatile feeders and consume a range of mainly vegetable food items. Seeds form a large part of the diet of all species; these are opened with their large and powerful bills. The galahs, corellas and some of the black cockatoos feed primarily on the ground; others feed mostly in trees.<ref name = "HBW"/><!-- this ref cites previous two sentences --> The ground-feeding species tend to forage in flocks, which form tight, squabbling groups where seeds are concentrated and dispersed lines where food is more sparsely distributed;<ref name=Cam1189>{{Harvnb|Cameron|2007|pp=118–9}}.</ref> they also prefer open areas where visibility is good. The [[western corella|western]] and long-billed corellas have elongated bills to excavate tubers and roots and the pink cockatoo walks in a circle around the doublegee (''[[Emex australis]]'') to twist out and remove the underground parts.<ref name=Cam113>{{Harvnb|Cameron|2007|p=113}}.</ref><!-- this ref cites previous two sentences -->

Many species forage for food in the canopy of trees, taking advantage of [[serotiny]] (the storage of a large supply of seed in cones or gumnuts by plant genera such as ''[[Eucalyptus]]'', ''[[Banksia]]'' and ''[[Hakea]]''), a natural feature of the Australian landscape in dryer regions. These woody fruiting bodies are inaccessible to many species and harvested in the main by parrots, cockatoos and rodents in more tropical regions. The larger cones can be opened by the large bills of cockatoos but are too strong for smaller animals.<ref name=Cam1167>{{Harvnb|Cameron|2007|pp=116–7}}.</ref> Many nuts and fruits lie on the end of small branches which are unable to support the weight of the foraging cockatoo, which instead bends the branch towards itself and holds it with its foot.<ref name=Cam114>{{Harvnb|Cameron|2007|p=114}}.</ref>

While some cockatoos are generalists taking a wide range of foods, others are specialists. The glossy black cockatoo specialises in the cones of trees of the genus ''[[Allocasuarina]]'', preferring a single species, ''[[Allocasuarina verticillata|A. verticillata]]''. It holds the cones in its foot and shreds them with its powerful bill before removing the seeds with its tongue.<ref>{{Cite journal|title=Food value and tree selection by Glossy Black-Cockatoos ''Calyptorhynchus lathami''|journal=Austral Ecology|year=2001|first=GM|last=Crowley|author2=Garnett S|volume=26|issue=1|pages=116–26|doi=10.1046/j.1442-9993.2001.01093.x|doi-broken-date=3 December 2024 }}</ref> Some species take large numbers of insects, particularly when breeding; in fact the bulk of the [[yellow-tailed black cockatoo]]'s diet is made up of insects. The large bill is used in order to extract grubs and larvae from rotting wood. The amount of time cockatoos have to spend foraging varies with the season.<ref name=Cam114/> During times of plenty they may need to feed for only a few hours in the day, in the morning and evening, then spend the rest of the day roosting or preening in trees, but during the winter most of the day may be spent foraging. The birds have increased nutritional requirements during the breeding season, so they spend more time foraging for food during this time. Cockatoos have large [[crop (anatomy)|crops]], which allow them to store and digest food for some time after retiring to a tree.<ref name=Cam1223>{{Harvnb|Cameron|2007|pp=122–23}}.</ref><!-- this ref cites previous three sentences -->