The picture-perfect timing of one bird lover has landed him an incredible image of a cockatoo flying upside down, with the bird believed to be “checking him out” while readying a hollow to nest.
Graeme Toft, 72, has been a professional photographer for over a decade but admits he’d “never seen anything like it before” when he captured the shot near Kilkivan, a country town in the Gympie region of Queensland.
“He flew over the top of me, and then as I followed him with the camera, he put his head down in that position and looked back,” Toft told Yahoo News. “Usually a bird will turn and look at you sideways but for him to put his head down like that and look, it was quite unique.”
Cockatoos beloved for their being cheeky personalities
The image has been praised online for capturing the cheeky personality that many cockatoos seem to exhibit, with Toft admitting most “cockatoos are such characters”.
“I have a love of birds, and I look for unusual postures in birds, but this one just came out of the blue. I wasn’t prepared for it,” he said. “You can see from the force of the air that it has spread his comb on his head… when I looked at it on the camera, I couldn’t stop laughing.”
The native birds are known to be intelligent, often working together to open bins and pick at the disposed remnants — much to some residents’ dismay. They are also renowned for being incredibly sociable, often living within large flocks with several generations of the same family in tow.
This article by Sophie Coghill was first published by Yahoo on 21 August 2024. Lead Image: Photographer Graeme Toft was delighted to capture the cockatoo ‘checking him out’ near Kilkivan, Queensland. Source: Graeme Loft.
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