Palm Cockatoo

[Glenn Pure]

A bird many of you won't have seen, this species is found only in the remote areas of Cape York in North Queensland, Australia and Papua New Guinea. Overall population unknown but Australian population probably numbers less than 5,000 birds. This is our largest cockatoo species. According to the wikipedia entry, it may have the second largest bill worldwide of parrot species, second only to the hyacinth macaw. This was one of only two birds I saw on a trip to Cape York in 2016. As luck would have it, this one spent 15 or 20 minutes in a low tree bang in the middle of the campground where we were staying! Frame is cropped from horizontal and a branch snapped off by the bird on the right of the frame has been taken out. Taken with the original Mark 1 100-400 canon zoom which is showing some of its lack of sharpness - wish I'd had the Mark II for this shot.

As always, thank you for looking and for any comments you are kind enough to share.

Technical: Canon 80D with EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM (original version) at 400mm handheld. Manual exposure 1/500 sec, f8, ISO 1600. Processed in Canon DPP 4 (digital lens optimiser @ 50, sharpness = 2.5, crop, lighting adjustments, reduced luminance NR) then exported 16 bit TIFF to Photoshop Elements with Neat Image NR plugin. Modest NR to bird and stronger NR to background. Bird only sharpened in PSE (Sharpness tool, remove Gaussian Blur, 0.4 pixels at 50%) after final size reduction.

[annmpacheco]

Wow Glenn, what a treat and a terrific looking boss parrot. Yes the detail is somewhat lacking and there seems to be a bluish tint to the blacks... I'm at the infant stage of color cast so please forgive me for sticking my neck out here... I like your crop, and it is interesting to see the parrot fiddling with his claws... I'm intrigued by this species and so I thank you for the introduction, I'm off to find out more... TFS Wow

[Glenn Pure]

I like your crop, and it is interesting to see the parrot fiddling with his claws...

Ann, it has a fruit in his claws (in shadow) and is about to eat but you'd be excused for missing it. The tree it was on is a favourite of theirs apparently - a Nonda Plum (Parinari nonda) which occurs naturally in those parts. Their huge bill is a great asset for eating such fruit and cracking seeds and nuts. I have heard of another smaller, less powerful cockatoo species of the north - a red-tailed black-cockatoo - referred to as 'flying boltcutters'. An apt description here as well. I do count myself lucky for having encountered this bird and better, having a chance to photograph.

[gail bisson]

Love, love the crest. I am on my laptop so take my critique with a grain of salt!
Blacks look on my end and I do not see a cast.
I would increase exposure ever so slightly.
Good comp,
Gail

[Daniel Cadieux]

It looks just like you (from your avatar)!. Great bird, and now that you mention it I do see the morsel of food in the claws. I love how the foot/leg is sticking out of the plumage. Just a touch dark for me as well

[Glenn Pure]

Thank you Ann, Gail and Daniel. Yes it is 'me' (or at least my avatar). Another frame from the same sequence. As black birds, I'm reluctant to lighten this much more for fear of making it look a bit 'wishy-washy'. But I appreciate your observations and taking the time to comment.