Coming right at you!
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Not least among Forest red-tailed black cockatoos’ qualities is their sheer zest.
A capacity to relish being alive is, I think, unevenly distributed between individuals within a species…and between different species/subspecies.
This capacity is often spectacularly evident in Calyptorhynchus banksii naso.
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The pictured female Forest red-tailed black cockatoo was a very relaxed individual.
Three other red-tails had also been dining on the relevant small, but fruit-laden “Cape Lilac”, but they fled when pedestrian traffic increased.
However, homeward-bound students from Bob Hawke High walking or cycling, directly below “her” tree – and some codger with a camera – did not bother this post’s heroine.
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In front, above, is a female red-tail.
Behind her is a male.
At the relevant time and place – 11.11 am on 01 May, in a so-called Cape Lilac tree, growing in a West Leederville lane – they were two of five red-tails, enthusiastically feasting on the same tree.
Debris was “raining” down, temporarily “greening” the asphalt.
One oft-evident aspect of same-species’ bird behaviour was conspicuously absent…as is very often the case with all three of southwestern Western Australia’s black cockatoos.
(equally magnificent, and also endangered, the other two are “our” planet’s only white-tailed black cockatoos)
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Unmistakably, the pictured individual is an adult male Forest red-tailed black cockatoo.
The tree he is trashing (but fear not: in the longer run, the apparently “ravaged” tree will in fact be all the healthier for the cockatoos’ efforts) is less than one minute’s walk from where I am currently sitting, at home.
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I took this photo in the latter part of an amazing three hours, which had begun shortly before sunrise, well within Jamnagar’s city limits.
Jamnagar, in western India, is a whisker inland from the Arabian Sea, in Gujarat.
Nearby is what bills itself as the world’s largest petrochemical plant.
You can’t see any feathers in this photo, but its humans are watching and/or photographing birds – water birds of many species, in profusion…all thriving in a far from pristine, definitely-urban wetland.
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Superb Fairy-wrens and Splendid Fairy-wrens both deserve their names.
The former – Malurus cyaneus, pictured above – is the “Blue-wren” most familiar to humans who reside in Australia’s southeast.
The latter – Malurus splendens – is the Blue-wren most commonly seen in Australia’s southwest.
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Photographically speaking, birds on the wing are – in equal measure – irresistible, humbling and frustrating.
Their irresistible/frustrating aspect is especially apparent when a photographer attempts to capture/convey how a bird launches itself into the air, or returns to earth/tree-branch/rooftop/ledge/water’s surface…
“Successful results” are guaranteed to be rare events, and one’s “successes” usually prove “qualified” rather than “total”.
This post’s image is one such qualified success…
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Reportedly, this species – a southern African arid/semi-arid savannah/grassland specialist – will sometimes fly 120 kilometres from its nest, in order to find water.
Happily, for many Burchell’s sandgrouse this is no longer necessary; boring humans – well, humans who sink bores – have proved a boon to Pterocles burchelli.
Named after an English naturalist, they are somewhat pigeon-like in appearance…but not in their abilities and behaviour.
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Dead yaks reputedly provide rather more than half of the food eaten by Gyps himalayensis, but many members of Homo sapiens have also been devoured.
“Live” humans, fear not!
These very large raptors are scavengers, not hunters.
For countless human generations – via so-called “Tibetan Sky Burials”, in which religious rites are meticulously conducted, but the recently-deceased are not buried – Himalayan Griffon Vultures have done high-altitude humans a valuable service.
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