CockyWatch Road Surveys are transect based surveys designed to gather valuable information on habitat use, abundance and densities of threatened Black-Cockatoos in southwest Western Australia. Any time you’re going for a drive that’s longer than 20 kilometres, you can do a CockyWatch survey. In addition to providing some details about your journey, you count the
groups of Black-Cockatoos you encounter on the way. You can contribute surveys at any time of the year and repeat surveys of the same route are appreciated (particularly seasonally).

Surveys can be conducted within the region from Kalbarri to east of Esperance. During these fixed-route surveys you will only record sightings of the three Black-Cockatoo species of the southwest – Carnaby’s, Baudin’s and Forest Red-tailed Black-Cockatoos, as well as information on their habitat use and activity. Options to record species as Black-Cockatoo or White-tailed Black-Cockatoo are also available as identifying species at a distance can be difficult. Please submit your surveys even if you didn’t see any Black-Cockatoos. It is just as important for us to know where you didn’t see birds as well as where you did. For more detailed instructions and FAQs as well as a helpful video, please visit our CockyWatch webpage.

A note on safety: Observers do not necessarily need to stop when they see a Black-Cockatoo, however if completing a driving survey, we do recommend that you have a passenger who can record the data. If driving alone, we recommend that you stop in a safe way and place to record your data.