Results:
Feather Collection

We have finished counting all feather submissions from the Feather Forensics citizen scientists, and we were overwhelmed with the response! Thank you to all participants for sharing their time and stories, this work is only possible because of your efforts.

Over the three years we ran the Feather Forensics project, we recieved a total of 3,300 feathers from across Australia! These were collected by 70 citizen scientists, with 360 submissions in the post. These submissions were from 103 different postcodes across Australia, but 85% were from South Australia, which is where our research team is based at the University of Adelaide.

Most of the feathers collected by citizen scientists were some of the most commonly seen parrots in major cities across Australia. Interestingly, these species are also some of the most popular native birds kept by Australians as pets.

The most collected species were some of the most commonly seen parrots in Australian cities, with Galahs (Eolophus roseicapilla) coming out on top with 1,170 feathers. Most of these feather were body feathers with their iconic pink colouring, which feedback from paritipants said they were easy to spot!

Next were 730 feathers from Cacatua species, or White Cockatoos, including Sulphur-crested Cockatoos (Cacatua galerita), Little Corellas (Cacatua sanguinea), and Long-Billed Corellas (Cacatua tenuiostris). These birds were grouped together as while some feathers are unique to a species (like a Sulphur-crested cockatoos crest), most White Cockatoo feathers cannot be identified to species without other testing such as DNA. 

Finally, A total of 480 feathers from Rosellas were collected from Citizen Scientists, including Eastern Rosellas (Platycercus eximius), and Crimson Rosellas (Platycercus elegans), and the subspecies Adelaide Rosellas (Platycercus elegans adelaidae). While some of their feathers can look the same across species, we could usually tell the difference - by their smell! Rosellas use their smelly feathers for comminucation and nesting. From anecdotal evidence of people keeping these birds, Crimson Rosellas have much smellier feathers than the closely related Eastern Rosellas!

Finally, we recieved 440 feathers from Rainbow Lorikeets, one of the most common species seen in the wild and in captivity. In fact, Rainbow Lorikeets are Aussie Backyard Bird Count’s reigning champion as the most observed bird in Australia.