Black Cockie playing around

Several days ago, a mob of Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos (Calyptorhynchus funereus) came past my house, and squealed and squawked and carried on for ages, in the local Pine Trees.

Once again, these are not good photos, for these birds love to land in the very tops of Pine Trees (Pinus radiata), their favourite (introduced) food trees. That means that although one can see them clearly, and hear them very clearly indeed, with their amazing noises, they are in fact pretty much at the limit of my camera lens.

Still, I cannot resist publishing these images.

Three Black Cockies on Pine Tree

A weird but interesting shot of a Cockie flying low over my head.
These birds flap very slowly, but they are so powerful that they fly at about 30 Kms per hour with no trouble at all.
So, they can travel 100 metres in a few seconds, in about 3 wing flaps.
That makes them deceptively hard to capture in flight.

This shot shows the yellow panels in the tail.
This shot shows the slight crest on the head,
and the yellow patches on the side of the head.
This bird has launched itself from the highest branch on the tree, and is falling/flying out of the tree.
As usual such behaviour is accompanied by the tell-tale screaming call.
You may listen to the call (in MP3 format) from this site.