Galah

Galahs eat seeds from grasses and plants.

They look for food on the ground in big groups.

Galahs mostly eat seeds, which they find on the ground: seeds of grasses and wild plants, and grains such as wheat. They also eat some fruit, nuts, roots, young shoots, flowers and insects.

Because they eat crops, farmers in some areas see them as pests. Galahs can travel long distances to find good feeding places. When food is easy to find, they feed in the morning and evening and rest in trees in between.

San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance lists mainly seeds of grasses, cereal grains, cultivated crops and herbaceous plants, plus fruits, berries, nuts, roots, young shoots and leaves, flowers, and insects and their larvae. Birds typically feed on the ground in flocks of 10 to 1,000, and also in foliage. In summer, when food is plentiful, they feed in the morning and evening; in winter they may forage most of the day, resting in trees between bouts of 30 minutes to 5 hours.

The Australian Museum says the seed and crop diet makes galahs agricultural pests in some areas, and that birds may travel long distances to good feeding grounds. The Alliance adds that they have been seen undoing the stitches on farmers' grain bags.

Galahs live in big, noisy flocks.

They like to play. They even hang upside down!

Galahs are very social. They live in pairs and flocks, sometimes of a thousand birds or more, and at night huge, noisy flocks sleep together in big trees. On hot days they spend much of their time resting in the shade of leaves.

Galahs are playful: they swing upside down, slide down wires and roll down slopes. In light rain they may hang upside down from a branch to bathe. When an eagle or falcon comes, hundreds of galahs can swirl together like a tornado.

San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance describes a fission-fusion society of breeding pairs, juvenile flocks and local nomadic flocks that feed together, in groups from pairs to about 1,000 birds and, infrequently, over 2,000; large males dominate at food. Some birds are nomadic while others stay in home ranges. The Australian Museum notes a bouncing, acrobatic flight, sheltering from the heat in foliage for much of the day and huge, noisy roosts at night.

The Alliance records play (swinging upside down, sliding down wires, rolling down slopes), bathing upside down in light rain, mobbing of ground predators, and a 'swirling tornado flock' of hundreds of birds that appears to confuse raptors. Most breeding pairs strip a patch of bark near their nest hollow.

Listen to the sound at the start of this page.

It is a real galah calling in Perth, in Australia.

At the start of this page you can play a real recording of a galah calling near the Swan River in Perth, Western Australia, made in January 2025.

The Australian Museum describes the galah's voice as a high-pitched screech, 'chi-chi'. Galahs call loudly as they fly to their roost in the evening, and each galah can recognize others by their calls.

The recording on this page was uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by Ronnievonjohnson, who describes it as a galah call near the Swan River in Perth, Western Australia, recorded on 5 January 2025.

The Australian Museum describes the voice as a distinctive high-pitched screech, 'chi-chi'. San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance gives a two-note flight call written as chet-chet, chee-chuh or chill-chill, a short, harsh alarm screech and other calls given while perched; individuals recognize one another by their contact calls, and the calls and calling behaviour of males and females differ (Scarl and Bradbury 2009).

There are lots of galahs in Australia.

They are protected by law there.

The galah is listed as least concern. Nobody has counted all the galahs, but they are common across Australia and their numbers seem to be growing.

They still face some problems. Some galahs are hit by cars when they feed beside roads, some are taken for illegal trade, and very hot weather can make them ill. Galahs are protected as a native species in Australia, and international trade in them is controlled.

BirdLife International assessed Eolophus roseicapilla as Least Concern for the IUCN Red List (assessed 7 August 2018, published 2018): an extremely large range, an apparently increasing trend and an unquantified population described as common (del Hoyo et al. 1997). The IUCN lists it as not a migrant, with a generation length of 12.1 years.

San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance lists illegal trade, heat stress linked to climate change, and collisions with vehicles while feeding beside roads as threats, and notes that the galah is protected as a native species under Australia's Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 and listed on CITES Appendix II. It also notes that cereal and oilseed farmers regard it as a pest.