Christian had spent three months trailing cassowaries to gain their trust, with varying success. This territorial male had already chased him out of the forest three times. Returning to the same spot, he achieved this close, low-angle shot with a remote camera and flashes, revealing a tender moment between a male and its six-week-old chicks.
At nearly two metres tall, southern cassowaries have a fearsome reputation, and can deliver a nasty kick. But the males have a soft side, looking after their chicks for nine months and teaching them which fruits to eat. Vital dispersers of seeds, cassowary numbers are dwindling with the destruction and fragmentation of their rainforest home.
Germany
Christian is a photojournalist and filmmaker specialising in natural history and science-related topics. He works for the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behaviour as an Outreach Photographer and is a regular contributor to National Geographic Magazine. He has also been widely published in other magazines, such as GEO, and is a Canon Ambassador and a Founding Fellow of the International League of Conservation Photographers.
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