Fly to Camera, PART 4: Photographic Study of Parrot Flight - Congo African Grey

In Part 4, we again took many still photos while simultaneously recording a video of each flight. We matched each still photo with the exact video frame that corresponded to the photo (you can usually hear the shutter clicks of the SLR in the video). We then inserted the still photographs within the video--next to that frame.

During this session, we were shooting almost directly into the sun. The Grey, who was new at this "game", was enjoying it so much that we kept trying anyway. It was nearly impossible to get the right exposure and focus, so we attempted to rely on the autofocus, but that didn't work either. We ended up having to discard a bunch of images, and the ones that we wanted to keep had to be salvaged with post-production--mostly cropping, saturation, and contrast adjustments.

The two most interesting aspects of this session were wing position and facial expressions. While you can see concentration and playfulness in all of the birds as they fly, there is an intensity with the Grey that is very striking. We're not sure if it's due to her personality, her species, or if she may just be working harder at flying than the others as she was new at it.

Those of you who are not familiar with African Greys may not know this, but the Greys have a reputation for being "clumsy". We haven't seen that at all, and these images show that her flight style is actually quite similar to the conures in spite of her differences in physique and feathering. The one main difference we do see is that the Grey will consistently start her wing strokes higher (wings lifted straight up) than the conures, and the Jenday (never clipped) rarely raises her wings that high in her strokes.

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SEE THE STILL SHOTS FOR PART 4 ON FLICKR...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23399676@N04/sets/72157623243041936/

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• photography
• SLR
• DSLR
• Canon
• EOS
• 40
• rebel
• digital
• tamron
• Di
• lens
• recall
• training
• smart
• bird
• tricks
• african
• grey
• cag
• congo
• gray
• Bobo
• free
• flight
• freeflying

[ownedbymygrey]

Amazing!! He can hardly wait to fly to his mama.

[flychomperfly]

LOL

Actually, although Mom is fun, Bobo is bonded to Daddy. Whenever something is scary, it's right over to Dad. They just love this "game" of showing off for the camera.

[ownedbymygrey]

That's so cute. I love how you say 'stay' and she stays but you can tell she is soooo excited to show off her moves.