Pretty Birds

African Grey Parrot

Some of the animals at Hollywild Animal Park have been rescued from owners that could no longer care for them or that needed to find the animal a better home. Tank, the rhino I showed a couple of days ago, is one of Hollywild's rescued animals. He has been at the park for about twenty years now.

The park also has a few parrots that local owners brought to the park because they couldn't care for them any more. Above is the Park's African Grey Parrot. African Greys are extremely intelligent birds. Some have learned not only how to mimic words, but how to use them in context as well as teach other parrots how to "speak" English. Case in point. When I finished photographing this parrot, I told it, "Thank you." The bird promptly replied with, "You're welcome." This got quite a few impressed chuckles from the other photographers.

More after the jump.

Yellow-Naped Amazon Parrot

Above is Hollywild's Yellow-naped Amazon parrot. It has a yellow patch on the back of it's neck, i.e. the nape, hence the name. This bird was quite a talker and had a very clear voice. It mostly said "Hello" with various inflections, but it did use other words and phrases too. I believe it said "Goodbye" to a photographer that was leaving it. The bird also seemed to relish the attention as it always had this mischievous gleam in it's eyes.

Scarlet Macaw

Finally, I got to photograph this Scarlet Macaw. These are the birds that come to mind when most people think of parrots. They are large birds who need a lot of room. Their tail can be a couple of feet long for example. This particular macaw kept moving around the tree it was placed in which make getting good shots of it difficult. Still it was a beautiful bird.

The park also has a yellow-crested cockatoo which I only got to see briefly, and didn't get any particularly good photographs of it.

All of these photographs with the parrots were taken with the new Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII which I got to borrow from the Nikon representative. It is such a nice lens. I love how it makes the background blur out to such a smooth set of tones and colors. That blurring effect makes the subject stand out so nicely from the background.

Have a good weekend. Maybe stop by Hollywild if you are in the Greenville or Spartanburg area.

Keep shooting.