Glossies and flossies need your help: volunteer today
We are seeking your help to conserve one of the state’s most vulnerable species, with the Glossies in the Mist team seeking Southern Highlands citizen scientists to join volunteer efforts to protect glossy black-cockatoos and their habitat.
Glossies in the Mist aims to identify key feeding trees and nesting hollows to help secure foraging and breeding habitat for ‘glossies’ within the Great Western Wildlife Corridor, which links the southern Blue Mountains with Morton National Park.
Finding nest trees means essential glossy black-cockatoo habitat can be better protected, while also providing opportunities to learn how these incredible birds are using the landscape and how many glossies are in the region.
Saving our Species staff will be leading targeted searches for nest trees during the birds’ nesting season and volunteers are invited to join on-ground to assist. We’re seeking participants for searches to be conducted in May 2025, which are scheduled to take place between the areas of Bullio and Bungonia.
Saving our Species is particularly keen to spot the ever elegant ‘flossy’ (female glossies). Their unique facial patterning means we can look out for individual flossies that live in the region. Repeated sightings help us understand habitat use and breeding behaviours as we get to know our local birds.
For those who cannot join a survey, but think they’ve spotted a glossy, findings can now be submitted through the new Glossies in the Mist data collection project on the NatureMapr platform. The platform allows the public to contribute photos and audio recordings of glossies as well as locations of local feed trees. Once a sighting is submitted, it is verified by a moderator and added to BioNet, the NSW government’s biodiversity database.
Users can download the free NatureMapr app to their smart device or upload contributions directly to the NatureMapr web page.
As well as contributing any sightings to the NatureMapr page, members of the public are invited to volunteer as essential moderators to help validate glossy sightings.
Anyone interested in these wonderful volunteer opportunities can register via the NSW Government website.
Quotes attributable to Kelly Roche Senior Threatened Species Officer Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water:
'These beautiful birds rely on deep tree hollows and seeds from Allocasuarina trees as their only food source, and due to continued fragmentation and loss of these habitats their numbers are sadly dwindling.
'In many ways survival of glossy black-cockatoos is in the hands of the public, and we are calling on those with a love for wildlife to please consider taking part in one of the many volunteer programs we are running to help these animals flourish.
'Hundreds of uploads to NatureMapr are already helping local experts, many of whom are volunteers, better understand glossy behaviour.
'Even though glossies are well loved, there is so much yet to learn about how they use their habitat and what breeding areas they use to survive in the Southern Highlands.'