Cockatoo defies gravity while 'checking out' photographer: 'Never seen anything like it'
Grame Toft, 72, said the 'unique' moment continues to make him laugh.
The picture-perfect timing of one bird lover has landed him an incredible image of a cockatoo flying upside down, with the bird believed to be "checking him out" while readying a hollow to nest.
Graeme Toft, 72, has been a professional photographer for over a decade but admits he'd "never seen anything like it before" when he captured the shot near Kilkivan, a country town in the Gympie region of Queensland.
"He flew over the top of me, and then as I followed him with the camera, he put his head down in that position and looked back," Toft told Yahoo News. "Usually a bird will turn and look at you sideways but for him to put his head down like that and look, it was quite unique."
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The image has been praised online for capturing the cheeky personality that many cockatoos seem to exhibit, with Toft admitting most "cockatoos are such characters".
"I have a love of birds, and I look for unusual postures in birds, but this one just came out of the blue. I wasn't prepared for it," he said. "You can see from the force of the air that it has spread his comb on his head... when I looked at it on the camera, I couldn't stop laughing."
The native birds are known to be intelligent, often working together to open bins and pick at the disposed remnants — much to some residents' dismay. They are also renowned for being incredibly sociable, often living within large flocks with several generations of the same family in tow.
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