杏吧原创

Gallery: Top shots from the bird catwalk

鈥淚T鈥橲 like Vogue for birds,鈥� says , a bird trainer at the National Aviary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, of photographer Andrew Zuckerman鈥檚 latest book, . Against Zuckerman鈥檚 signature white backdrop, the birds鈥� brilliantly coloured plumage comes to life.

Just over half of the 75 birds featured in the book were photographed with Estell鈥檚 help, and like all models, the birds sometimes threw tantrums on set. 鈥淚t took us around 30 takes to get this shot of Tyler, a hyacinth macaw named after the lead singer of Aerosmith,鈥� she says. 鈥淭he white backdrop, camera and bright flashing lights gave him the jitters, and he kept veering off-course and landing on the computer used to control the focus of the camera.鈥�

Hailing from South America, hyacinth macaws are, at 1 metre from head to tail, the largest parrots in the world. 鈥淵ou can see the massive bill they use to crush their food, which includes coconuts,鈥� says , an ornithologist based at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. With only a few thousand remaining in the wild, they are also one of the rarer species featured in the book, he adds. Like most macaws and many other parrots, the hyacinth macaw is under threat from the trade in exotic pets, and from habitat destruction.

Unlike plants (think blueberries), vertebrates can鈥檛 make blue pigments, says at Yale University. The macaw鈥檚 blue hue is due to the way light scatters as it passes through air channels in feather barbs, he explains. 鈥淏ecause the hyacinth macaw has smaller air channels than most parrots, you get constructive interference of a deep blue colour.鈥�

Parrots and raptors have a monopoly on the photos in Bird because they鈥檙e the easiest kinds of bird to train, Estell says. Despite this, prior to Zuckerman鈥檚 arrival she had to spend weeks teaching them to fly back and forth in front of his white canvas backdrop. 鈥淚nitially they were terrified of it, but we bribed them with mealworms and grapes,鈥� she recalls.

Estell鈥檚 favourite photo in the book is that of X, a 6-year-old . Weighing in at over 3 kilograms and boasting a wingspan of 2 metres, the Eurasian eagle owl is the largest owl species in the world. Its claws, which are bigger than those of a leopard, can take out herons, foxes and even young deer, though the thought leaves Estell unperturbed. 鈥淴 is my baby 鈥� I hand-raised her from birth,鈥� she says.

Zuckerman鈥檚 snapshot of X is scientifically instructive, says Elphick. 鈥淭he photo makes it clear that the owl鈥檚 feathers lie in neat overlapping rows like tiles on a roof, rather than being haphazardly distributed,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t also shows just how much the wing twists and rotates as it manoeuvres through the air. It鈥檚 not simply a matter of the wing flapping up and down.鈥�

Photographing the flightless birds was understandably easier, but still hard work, Estell says. 鈥淭he African penguins just wouldn鈥檛 stand still. As soon as we let go of them, they waddled amok. In the end, we had to resort to dangling keys in front of them to keep them in place.鈥�

Better behaved was the red-legged seriema, nicknamed Bam Bam by the National Aviary crew. 鈥淲e called him that because in the wild these guys kill lizards by throwing them hard against a rock,鈥� Estell says.

Seriemas are only found in the Cerrado, a region of arid savannah in South America that has not received as much attention as the Amazon but is likewise disappearing rapidly as land is converted to cattle ranches, says Elphick. 鈥淭he first seriemas I ever saw were jauntily high-stepping away from me through tall grass, which reminded me of John Cleese in the Ministry of Funny Walks sketch,鈥� he says. 鈥淶uckerman鈥檚 photos show the seriema in all its glorious gawkiness.鈥�

Roger Lederer, a retired ornithologist from in Chico, says that the level of detail provided by Zuckerman鈥檚 photos blows binoculars out of the water. 鈥淚 must say I have never seen anything like it.鈥�

Gallery: Top shots from the bird catwalk