Wild Feathered

Another trickier theme than at first glance!

My primary thoughts were that I'd satisfactorily accomplished the Rainbow Lorikeet in flight for the last theme and that I wasn't really wanting another similar shot so soon. 

 In Australia we really are very lucky to have such pretty parrots flying wild, and although I'm not a huge fan of birds in general, I can appreciate their rare beauty in the wild :-)

For this theme all three images come from a dedicated hunting style of shoot. A trip to my local off lead dog park (which I gotta say is not the most lovely of environments) a place I'd spied the Red-Rumped Parrots on previous walks with the dogs.
They are apparently known for their ground feeding, but also for their flightiness! On this shoot I literally watched them when they landed for a feed, crouched and crept, clicked off a few frames and off they flew landing a little further away, rinse (or chimp) and repeat. I pushed it a little closer and a little less patiently, and I managed to capture a few taking off and flirting and landing shots, this first one being maybe of only 2 that were in frame and focus ;-)

this 2nd image shows how close I managed to get to the length of the 200mm, with about a quarter crop, a male Red Rumped Parrot

 then up into the trees for safety. I included this last image as of a more documentary style, they travel in pairs, the male has the brighter coloured plumage than the female with the distinctive red spot just before their tail feathers begin, though generally they are very camouflaged both on the ground and in the native trees. While attempting these tree shots I noticed immediately that my lens was struggling to find the focus, so even this seemingly easy shot was tricky and I didn't get the focus exactly where I was hoping.

cheers, hope you enjoy :-)