Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo

Taken a few days ago not far from home. These birds are a bit of a success story in as much as several years ago they were a rarity, but numbers have increased to the point where at times flocks containing as many as 100 birds can be seen and heard flying over the suburbs and countryside...a great thing to see.

Largish birds about the size of ravens feeding almost exclusively on the seeds from Pine Cones, native tree cones and introduced. Rarely coming down low enough for a decent photo, and very wary and hard to approach birds, as is often the case with many flocking species where there is always at least one bird keeping lookout

Taken late afternoon in low light with the last rays of the sun, several images taken of males and female and feeding young :S3: Two versions of this shot, this one natural WB off camera and sunshine tones warm looking, and another altered to cool the sun color....picked this one to post for no particular reason

Canon 7D + 500 f4 + 1.4 x TC.....700mm, f7.1, 1/1000, ISO 500, + 0.3EV, hand held, cropped to vertical and some leaves and twigs removed, slight sharpen and noise removal to background

Hello Phil, Nice look back pose, details and exposure..Nice to get undisturbed view and IQ looks great. I wish for slightly more head turn and better shooting angle but as you mentioned they seldom come down to make it possible to get an eye level image so this is fine. Well done.

- Maya

What an interesting bird and well done with the exposure.

Jack

Magnificent Image of beautiful bird.Excellent exposure and details in colors.Wish I could see his beak.

I love him. Great feather detail. Pose is fine with me. And thanks for the positive story.

A wonderful bird Phil, well taken, great detail. HA is what it is.
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excellent exposure and good detail in the blacks wish for a better HA here

Thanks for looking, regarding the beak, this species has a beak that is generally tucked in tight to it's feathers, only really visible when feeding as other shots I have show.

Wonderful shot. Excellent details, exposed very well, great light, and a very lovely bird.
Well done.

nice image Phil,good details,wish for a better head turn.thanks.

Hi Phil, well exposed on the blacks, which in turn has brought out good feather detail. Love the hint of yellow's on him.