"Pete Red-Tailed Black Cockatoo", 2012
Signed Leila Jeffreys and numbered AP 1/2. Total edition of 6 + 2 AP. C-print, image ca 117.5 x 91 cm.
"Pete is one of the few birds that did not need to be photographed in my portable bird studio. Instead he freely walked up and down a log that was brought in for the shoot. I had to move fast to keep up with him and he had so many great moves and expressions it was hard to keep him in focus.
As the shoot went on he got more and more excited, pulling out his best moves. He was one bird that was born for the stage – think Elvis’ 1968 Comeback Special. There were a lot of impressive loud screeches, a crest that was so big sometimes you couldn’t see his beak, lots of dancing and flapping and general excitement about getting to perform.
Juvenile male Red-tailed Black Cockatoos resemble females until puberty, which occurs at around four years of age, but have paler yellow barred underparts. As the birds reach maturity, males gradually replace their yellow tail feathers with red ones."
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