Black Cockatoos

These are, thankfully, not as destructive as the Sulphur Crested. They are rarer than the Sulphurs, so they are more difficult to see. When they are seen, they are usually very 'shy' around people and fly away readily and are often high up in the tree canopy. This pair were about 10 meters up in a neighbouring evergreen happily eating the cones and sending a rain of bits down onto the neighbour's roof. I will post some o the good photos of the pair together anon.

Birds of the Garden

The ever-elusive ambush hide-a-finch. I will get the "real" name as soon as I find it out. I am just happy to finally have a few decent photos of them.
Crimson Rosellas off of the back deck

Australian Magpie drinking from the waterbowl on the back deck.

Above: Male King Parrot not very thrilled with the rain, in back garden.

Below: Female King Parrot saying hello

King Parrots. Female with the green head, male with the red head.

Rainbow Lorikeet outside the bedroom window, in the back garden.

Sometimes the cockatoos play upside down in the trees...

Looking out over the valley and cockatoo in the back garden gumtree at sunset...

The Powerful Owl

Sydney Glimpses

Fur Seals in New Zealand

The Albatross

Shy Mollymawk (A Lesser Albatross) (Thalassarche cauta steadi)

Taking off

Preparing for splashdown

(note the feet coming out of flight position and dropping)

Winner of the prize

Below: Some of the battles over right to the food. Even though the fights loked very fierce, especially with the very hooked beaks and sheer size and strength of these birds, none of them appeared harmed. After the battles, the victor would spread out to about 2/3 rds wingspan and move back to the food, often holding wings out in a size/dominance and territory display, as can been seen in the above photo. I was close enough to several of these that I was soaked from the sprays of water-- seeing a bird of this size quite literally *run on water* at another bird, sometimes stepping on others in the path, was an amazing sight. In the last photo, you can see that they will raise up so high out of the water with massive webbed feet and wings to literally stand on the surface like a person walking on a full-wave waterbed.