It's a couple of seconds of a cockatoo flying, just like the title says.
Only, it's not. Eadweard Muybridge is remembered as one of the inventors of motion pictures because to settle a bet, he used a series of cameras and tripwires to prove that at a gallop, a horse's hooves are all off the ground at the sme time. In the 1880s, he toured with several exhibits of photographic series which showed motion in the same way. If, instead of being exhibited side-by-side, they are shown seriatim, you get the illusion of motion with which, almost a century and a half later, is old hat.
Only, it's not. Eadweard Muybridge is remembered as one of the inventors of motion pictures because to settle a bet, he used a series of cameras and tripwires to prove that at a gallop, a horse's hooves are all off the ground at the sme time. In the 1880s, he toured with several exhibits of photographic series which showed motion in the same way. If, instead of being exhibited side-by-side, they are shown seriatim, you get the illusion of motion with which, almost a century and a half later, is old hat.