Which cockatoo?

A cockatoo is part of the family of parrots (cacatuidae) which counts 21 species. The cockatoo has long been identified as an Australasian species, but over the years the exact subspecies depicted in De arte has been the subject of much debate among academics and ornithologists who have often been working with reproductions of the original image.Ragnar Kinzelbach, 'Modi auium – Die Vogelarten im Falkenbuch des Kaisers Friedrich II', in Kaisers Friedrich II 1194–1250: Welt und Kultur des Mittelmeerraums, ed. by Karen Ermete, Mamoun Fansa, and Carsten Ritzau, 2 vols (Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 2008), II, 62–13 Three other images of a species of cockatoo are depicted in the manuscript. Thanks to detailed work with the original source, it is now understood to be a member of the Cacatua galerita–C. sulphurea subspecies group, meaning Yellow- or Sulphur-crested. This bird is native to Australasia, in particular the most northern part of present-day Australia and Papua New-Guinea. The yellow-crested cockatoo is not a migratory bird, but was spread by humans.

The detail of the four depictions in De arte indicate that they were drawn from a live bird. Rare birds such as this cockatoo were traded along the trading routes and were already prized possessions at the Chinese court of the Tang dynasty (618-907 CE). The yellow-crested cockatoo most likely travelled westwards to the Holy Roman Empire to end up in the collection of Frederick II via China and its trading routes rather than via India which was the shorter route. But how exactly did it end up in Frederick’s menagerie?