Thursday, March 1, 2012

Military Macaw (Ara militaris)

I got my second opportunity to see such brightly feathered birds in one day - the same day that I saw the Hyacinth Macaws.  Loud and raucous like their blue cousins, I found the pair too busy stripping the tree of its bark and not really paying much attention to each other.  So much so that I couldn't get a shot of them together despite my hanging around them for a while in the hopes they'd oblige me.

They appeared to be very curious birds by nature and really intent on what they were doing.  I'm not sure whether they were actually eating the bark or just pecking at them in an attempt to gather nutrients.

Again, as with the Hyacinth Macaws, I had a great challenge photographing these birds in extremely low light.  A long and heavy lens just didn't help and you will notice the slightly soft focus in some of the images.  This happened for mainly two reasons, though - one of course was the low shutter speed, causing the pictures to be on the softer side, and the other one is the extreme application of noise reduction in post that softened out the details a little bit as well.  However, I only got a handful of shots and these were some  of them.

IMG_9761.jpg by Shiny Dewdrop

IMG_9758.jpg by Shiny Dewdrop


IMG_9757.jpg by Shiny Dewdrop


IMG_9748.jpg by Shiny Dewdrop


IMG_9739.jpg by Shiny Dewdrop


IMG_9736.jpg by Shiny Dewdrop