Blue-headed Parrot (Peru)

[Glenn Bartley]

One of the stops on my Peru tour was to visit an incredible place in lowland Amazonia where several species of parrots and macaws come to eat clay each day. They need to do this to help them digest the toxic seeds and fruits that they eat.

Although the highlight tends to be the 100 or so Red-and-Green Macaws that come down, there are also some other beautiful species like this Blue-headed Parrot.

As a side note - I am loving this new 600mm!  :-)



Camera Model: Canon EOS 7D
Shutter speed: 1/3200 sec
Aperture: 4
Exposure compensation: -1/3
ISO: 640
Lens: EF600mm f/4L IS II USM - Hand held

[Ken Bennett]

Hand held? Wow.

You must have very good arms....

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Hand held? Wow.

You must have very good arms....

And very good sense of timing, to get the wings at just the right instant.

[AFairley]

That is really "on the fly."  Pretty damned impressive.

[francois]

Fantastic framing along with those colors… A feast for the eyes - as always!

[NancyP]

Lovely, as always. That is also a very impressive bird-in-flight handheld shot. I have to say that I aspire to that 600mm as well, must bulk up both wallet and arms. The 600mm weighs 8.7 pounds, considerably more than the 2.7 pounds lens I am using now (Canon 400mm f/5.6L, a real gem of a lens for beginning bird photography). The 400 f/5.6 is a great bird-in-flight training lens.