From Lofty, who says: Parrots out in the wild are of course wary of humans and very quick to fly out of camera range. With my zoom maxxed out I actually framed my first two parrots, a Crimson Rosella high up a tree at home and two Galahs hiding near a grass patch. I need to practice more… Yep, when it comes to dinosaurs, practice,practice, practice! I’d be pretty excited to see wild parrots. Click for full size!
© Lofty, all rights reserved.
Galahs = worlds dumbest parrot. :)
I like galahs. They make me think of Roman centurions.
Note to self: Must resist the temptation of super expensive zoomy lenses, even though brandishing a cheap camera makes you look alarming to the parrots…
The rosella* is looking down on the photographer. 8-)
The galah in the left has a crest that creepily looks like a face of an owl in the photo.
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* = A shipping company here operates a cruiseferry named Rosella (built 1979, one of the oldest cruiseferries currently sailing in Finnish waters). I’m not sure if I’ve traveled to Sweden on it, but it’s quite possible.
Ice Swimmer, I assume direct looks and raised crests are signs of alarm as I didn’t get another chance to pull the trigger. They simply shazammed off into the wide blue sky.
The world’s “dumbest” parrot might actually be the New Zealand kakapo (which is critically endangered).
Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine’s Last Chance to See had a number of great descriptions of the kakapo eccentricities, for example:
● “[The kakapo] is an extremely fat bird. A good-sized adult will weigh about six or seven pounds, and its wings are just about good for waggling a bit if it thinks it’s about to trip over something — but flying is out of the question. Sadly, however, it seems that not only has the kakapo forgotten how to fly, but it has forgotten that it has forgotten how to fly. Apparently a seriously worried kakapo will sometimes run up a tree and jump out of it, whereupon it flies like a brick and lands in a graceless heap on the ground.”
● “I’ve heard a tape of collected kakapo noises, and it’s almost impossible to believe that it all just comes from a bird, or indeed any kind of animal. Pink Floyd studio out-takes perhaps, but not a parrot.”
● “The kakapo’s persnickety dietary requirements are a whole other area of exasperating difficulty. It makes me tired just to think of them, so I think we’ll pass quickly over all that. Imagine being an airline steward trying to serve meals to a plane full of Muslims, Jews, vegetarians, vegans and diabetics when all you’ve got is turkey because it’s Christmas time, and that will give you the idea.”
And there’s the mating habits…
Ah yes… the kakapo.
Makes the galah look like a genius.