At 5:25 on my first morning on Rancho Naturalista’s deck, it felt a little like Christmas morning all over again as I looked out onto a nearby neighborhood and wondered who it belonged to. Before I could reach for my bins to take a closer look, someone from behind me exclaimed “That’s a White-crowned Parrot”, before it flew off again. Soon enough, this new friend gave me an overview of where we were walking and which birds I should look out for. Harry was on the deck later, calling out, pointing towards a small flock flying past and saying: “White-crowned Parrots!” I admit I wasn’t normally drawn to parrots – seeing or photographing them wasn’t something on my radar; perhaps I blamed Disney’s Tiki Room as being responsible. Well, all this changed that morning!
Now they captured my interest and imagination. We saw two species of parrots, the White-crowned and Brown-hooded, but often as small flocks flying past and out of range. On our fourth day they came into the high canopy to feed. On the last morning before our departure date, my luggage had already been packed, the van had arrived, and I began searching for ways to capture these views in my viewfinder. At dawn I found myself out on my deck with my Z 8/Z600f4 TC camera just in case there were any surprises, relaxing while enjoying some delicious coffee (thanks, Baristas!) when a White-crown landed high up in the canopy and made itself known to me – though no photograph could capture him/her before they flew off again. As soon as I brought down my camera, it flew directly toward me! It landed on some seed or fruit pod and just stared me in the face – as though to say, “OK I’m here, take your damn photo!” I did just that over and over and over. What an incredible bird! Incredible color with great attitude that I don’t see much in Montana. Now fascinated with White-crowned Parrots and hope to capture more photos than just silhouettes next year!
