Christmas Bells

Christmas Bells
Christmas Bells - Blandfordia nobilis

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Black Cocky - close enough to get a photo

Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos (Calyptorhynchus funereus) are commonly seen around Robertson, but usually they are high in the tops of old Pine Trees (Pinus radiata) and are either in the heavy shade, or silhouetted against the sky. Either way, they are not worth trying to photograph.

Several days ago I heard a young bird making its incessant creaking and groaning sounds, from relatively low down in a Eucalypt tree.

I stopped to take a photo (from out the car window).

Once I had got my shot, three birds flew away. I had only seen the one on the open branch, but clearly the other two were in dense cover of a low-growing Blackwood Wattle.
Female Black Cocky has a white beak
and dark skin around the eye (not a red eye ring)
My bird is an adult female, and so I assume the others included at least one juvenile bird, for their noise is diagnostic.

EDIT:
Dear reader - Please do yourself a favour and read the Sequel to this post, on my Colleague "Mosura's" Blog - The Nature of Tasmania.

Frankly it is a hilarious "comedy of errors" - but Mosura recognises the folly of his impromptu response to grab a few photos - in retrospect.

It is nice that I inspired him to try to photograph some Black Cockies of his own. He ends up giving us some stunning Insect photos, though.

Hope the Ant Bite has stopped throbbing, Mosura!

Cheers
Denis

8 comments:

mick said...

Very nice photos of the Black Cockie. That's one bird that I still haven't been able to get close to up here and yet when I lived down in NSW they seemed to be much less afraid - or else we had more trees that they wanted to eat from :-)

Joe said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Joe said...

Fabulous

Denis Wilson said...

Hi Joe and Mick.
Thanks for the comments.
As I said, Mick, they are routinely seen, but nearly always out of camera reach.
My bird was quite nervous. I was stopped beside the road, but it was keeping a sharp eye on me, as you can see. Then it flew, and they all flew together.
When they fly, they flap slowly, but they are so large and powerful, they just disappear out of range with 3 slow flaps of those huge wings.
Cheers
Denis

Mosura said...

Very nice!

I watching 3 from the window just a moment ago and flocks up to 32 fly over fairly regularly. As you say though, they are always either just out of range of the camera or if they are flying overhead I'm too slow to get the camera focused on them.

Denis Wilson said...

Hi Mosura.
Great birds, but annoying sometimes, but always full of character.
I love seeing them flying (fleeing) before a Thunderstorm, screaming like Harpies.
Cheers
Denis

Gouldiae said...

G'day Denis,
Always an entertaining bird to catch up with. We often get a half dozen or so stripping many of the trees on the golf course, and DF and I have seen them in their hundreds in the pine forests of South Gippsland. Wonderful characters.
Gouldiae.

Denis Wilson said...

Hi Gouldiae
We all love them for their comical antics and strange noises. Except the babies - their noises are awful!
Cheers
Denis