We have two new videos from Tara Tanaka in Florida, featuring Wood Storks mating and Great Egrets proffering sticks. The mating looks like an ungainly act!
Tara’s captions are indented; her Vimeo site is here and her Flickr site is here).
During spring and early summer the sound of male Wood Storks clacking their beaks against the female’s beak as they mate is can be heard frequently from our yard, but we rarely see them. I videoed a pair last week, as their nest-neighbors looked on. If the male had arms, I think he would be really good at patting his head and rubbing his stomach at the same time.
The light was hitting their wings in a way that you can see the beautiful iridescent green in their wing feathers that usually just look black.
Click to start the videos (there’s also an arrow at lower left):
My heart is so full from all of your kind comments on the Great Egret photo and the Wood Storks mating that I wanted to share a video that I shot of the male Great Egret bringing a stick to the nest. I usually shoot video at 60 fps, but switched to 120 fps so I could slow it down and you could see how beautiful his plumes are and how graceful he is as he lands. Hard to believe that many herons and egrets were almost hunted to extinction to provide feathers for women’s hats.
Enjoy this very short, slow-motion video!:
Ahhh – serene – a rare treat in the busy-ness – and hard to get way out in Nature, away from it all. Nice inspiration to look into it.
Thank you Bryan – I’m so glad you enjoyed it.
These are so amazing! I watched the clips many times, wondering how the extinct lineages of dinosaurs might have been carrying on in similar ways.
T. Rex mating would have been a sight to see. 🙂
Probably loud too!
There are so many storks looking for sticks right now that they are in our yard and in our trees frequently throughout the day. Sometimes I’ll see one gliding by and I’ll block out the rest of the world and imagine that I am in prehistoric times, and that nothing man-made exists. The egrets seem somehow “modern” compared to the storks, although their nestlings do seem more prehistoric.
That stick proffering video is so elegant, so moving. Thank you.
Absolutely – thanks for sharing it, Tara!
You’re so welcome Jez!
Thank you Janet – I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Beautiful nature films!
Thank you Charles!
Beautiful videos. 🦅🕊️🦜
Thank you!
These are beautiful! Thank you.