Cockatoo learns how to make its own drum kit to impress potential mates

A palm cockatoo called 'Ringo' has been filmed making drumsticks for a rhythmic mating ritual in the Australian rainforest.

The birds are thought to be the only species other than humans to make musical tools and use them to repeat musical patterns.

Males looking to impress potential mates typically use a large seed pod or snap off a branch and trim it down to eight inches – the perfect length for the parrots to clench it between the strong claws in their feet.

Females watch closely as their suitors bang away on trees with the makeshift instruments while making complex calls and erecting their large black feathery crests.

The palm cockatoos' distinctive red cheek patches will change colour if they get excited during the seductive performances, which were first described in 1984, but have now been captured on film by researchers in Queensland’s Kutini-Payamu National Park.

It took biologist Robert Heinsohn's team hundreds of hours to gather footage of more than 60 cockatoo drumming events over a seven-year period.

“Presumably some bright spark of a male stumbled across this behaviour, females found it pleasing and it took off in the population,” he told the New York Times.

“Palm cockatoos are unique in their ability to make a tool to amplify sound and then in using it to generate a percussive rhythm."

Dr Heinsohn said that each of the 18 palm cockatoos observed had a unique drumming style, with some preferring slow steady beats and others laying down faster, more varied rhythms.

But the birds produced predictable repeated patterns which Dr Heinsohn said is “the closest [thing] we have so far to musical instrument use and rhythm in humans”.

One cockatoo, who researchers called 'Ringo Starr', started his performances with a fast intro before settling into a steady stroke.

The drumming is said to be part of a mating ritual, though females have not been seen to react in any observable way.

Palm cockatoos also have a complex vocal abilities, and are able to whistle and say "hello".

They live in rainforests and woodlands in Indonesia, New Guinea and Australia’s Cape York Peninsula, where they are considered at risk due to aluminium ore mining.

In 2005 a chimp called Barney played a five-minute drum solo said to replicate characteristics of human drumming.

However apes, including wild chimps, bonobos, and gorillas, don't maintain a steady, recognisable rhythm when they slam on trees with their hands on feet.