cobaltducks's Favorites

Not sure?
I've seen funnel ant nests before and they look the same, but I've never seen the ground strewn with them all so close together.
The whole reserve was covered with them; thousands of them, but in patches like this.
Quite deep, so not echidna nor antlions.
The 2nd photo is an attempt to show many more, with those from the 1st photo on the top left.

First record from the nursery, looks like the naturalised hills population is still expanding. There is a slim possibility it could be a stowaway arriving in tube stock from Murray Bridge. Relocated to a planted terrarium. Will be interesting to see if any others turn up over the next few months, and what impact it has on the resident population of L. ewingii.

This is a different nest to the other, but was in the same bush and shows the fertile eggs as black, and then the hatchlings. They didn't survive unfortunately as we didn't know that they feed on lichen, not the senna leaves.

Measured larva was ~1.5mm long

Pupa:
https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/observations/108340543
Adult Female:
https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/observations/108340683
Eggs:
https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/observations/108340774
Different eggs that hatched:
https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/observations/108341332

So I know that this is a sulphur crested cockatoo but I'm a bit confused about the difference in it's crest and eye area. The crest looked quite orange and also a bit shorter than the others and the area surrounding the eyes also appeared different to the others as you can see in the second picture.

I didn't have much luck finding a definitive answer for this via google so, is this likely a genetic variation of some sort? Or a hybrid? I know nothing about hybrid cockatoos.