| Actual Image
Digging a Home (32)
JPlumb
![Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 637 W: 166 N: 889]](http://i1.treknature.com/misc/g-g-g.gif) (2884) | My wife and I were walking through the Royal Botanical Gardens in Sydney and came across a Sulphur-crested Cockatoo (Cacatua galerita) standing by a hole in the ground, with dirt flying out of the hole, please see Workshop 1. I had never seen anything like this, so I stopped to investigate. After a while, the Cockatoo standing by the side of the hole got in to help its mate with the digging, please see Workshop 2. The original shot you see here was taken when one of the Cockatoos took a break to have a look around.
I couldn’t find anything in the literature about Cockatoos digging a nest in the ground. Most sources talk about how they build a nest in a hollow high in a tree. There was one very brief mention in one article that said they would find a hole in the side of a cliff. It sure looked to me though that these two were digging a home.
Some more background can be found here: www.austmus.gov.au/factsheets/sulphur_crested_cockatoo.htm.
ID from: Simpson K. and Day N. (2004), Field Guide to the Birds of Australia, Penguin Books, Camberwell
Workflow for this shot was as follows:
The shoot – shot in Raw with Jpeg reference (210 mm ISO 400 f5.6 1/180)
NEF file adjusted for exposure, shadow, vignetting, brightness and contrast
Levels – adjusted for white and black points – periphery masked
Curves - adjusted RGB for contrast – very slight s-curve – periphery masked
Dodged and Burned with overlay layer (5% opacity white and black)
Added saturation layer +20 to master – periphery masked
Saved as a tiff
for this post slight crop, resized, created a new layer, selectively sharpened through use of a mask layer, framed and saved as a jpeg. |
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