Category: video

Readers’ wildlife photos (and videos)

August 14, 2019 • 7:45 am

I implore you once again to send me your wildlife photos (or videos). Within a week or so I may have to stop posting here due to lack of material.

Reader Garry VanGelderen sent a sea-loving odonate, and weigh in if you can identify it.

Not at all sure  what kind of dragonfly this is. It has been sitting there on the lower end of my mainsail sheet for the last 48 hours. Location: Turnbull Island, North Channel, Lake Huron.

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Reader Lorraine sent a very cryptic moth that she’d like identified. Her notes:

This amazing creature was on my bathroom mirror this morning. I’m guessing it’s a moth, but I honestly don’t know what kind it is. Do you think your readers might know? This was taken in my home near Forest Hill Park in Richmond, VA.  It measures about 2 inches long and three inches wide.
Can anyone identify it?
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From reader Ken Phelps, we have a barred owl (Strix varia):

Went out in the yard a few mornings ago and spied this owl enjoying the early morning sun.
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And two raptors from reader David Fuqua:

I am attaching a couple of bird pix I took on vacation. The first is a western osprey (Pandion haliaetus). This bird was actively fishing along the Snake River
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Bald Eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) sitting above their nest along the Snake River.

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We have a video by reader Alex Kleine.

A video of a great blue heron I took from my July 4th visit to Elizabeth Park in Hartford, Connecticut. The camera used to record this video was a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W800.

 

A soprano duck

August 13, 2019 • 1:30 pm

We have a special treat this afternoon: Tara Tanaka, after immense labor (true!), put together this video of a black-bellied whistling duck with a penchant for classical music. Be sure to turn the sound up and make the screen big.

Tara’s Vimeo page is here; her Flickr site is here, and the duck is Dendrocygna autumnalis.

Tara says, “Nothing to say about this, except I hope it makes you laugh.”  And clap!

 

 

Readers’ wildlife photos

August 11, 2019 • 7:45 am

UPDATE: Kit sent in some Facebook videos for your further edification:

Kit introduces you to a female Amegilla dawsoni

Kit introducing a “minor” male Amegilla dawsoni

Kit introducing a “major” male Amegilla dawsoni.

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Reader Kit Prendergast, a bee researcher from Australia. sent me some nice bee photos and a teaser: I didn’t know why these bees were, as she said, so amazing. But then I watched the Attenborough video, which I’ve put at the bottom. BE SURE to watch it! (The bees are also known as “Dawson’s burrowing bee”).

Kit’s words are indented:

Please find attached a few photos of one of the most amazing of bees Amegilla dawsoni, which was featured on a BBC docco narrated by David Attenborough. I recently went to Carnarvon to see them and assist another bee research who was studying them. Best experience of my life!

Kit as “beecatcher”:

Note below that reader Michael has dug up a video in which Kit gives a lecture about the importance of bees, all while wearing a full bee costume.

Beautiful bees and beautiful photos, right? Now hear about the murderous mating frenzy of this species.

[BBC notes: “For the BBC series LIFE. Narrated by David Attenborough, produced by Rupert Barrington, scientific consultant Victoria Cartelidge, research Adam Scott cinematography Peter Nearhos. Filmed at the Kennedy Ranges in Western Australia.”]

Michael Jackson reincarnated as a duck

August 3, 2019 • 1:45 pm

I was going to write at least one substantive post today, but I’m too sad about Frank (and others recently departed) to do that. Tomorrow is time enough.

Here, to cheer us up, is a video called to my attention by reader Norm, who gave it this caption:

The Tibetan Lama Council has recently proclaimed that Michael Jackson was reborn as a duck and is now residing in a farm in Lhasa, Tibet.  A video captured by the farm owner recently showed that he was happy and has not forgotten his signature dance moves.

A lovely video about Arctic animals

July 25, 2019 • 2:30 pm

As reader Michael notes, this 11-minute National Geographic video on Arctic animals (released just today) gives too much time to the cameraman, but is well worth watching to see the polar bears, arctic hares, lemming, snowy owls, ptarmigans, and—my personal favorite—the adorable, cat-sized Arctic fox. The fox does its famous acoustically-oriented snow dive (note its reddish-brown feet), and a silent snowy owl picks off a hapless lemming. It’s a land of white animals (except for the lemmings, who suffer for their coloration).

Lagniappe: a lovely Aurora Borealis appears at the end.

You can see part 1 here and part 2 here. Polar bear fight club!

 

Readers’ wildlife video

June 13, 2019 • 8:00 am

Tara Tanaka has a lovely video of parent and offspring of the Wood Stork (Mycteria americana), a colonial nester living in subtropical America.  (Tara’s Vimeo page is here; her Flickr site is here). Here are Tara’s notes on the video:

Every February I keep looking for the first Wood Stork scouts to return to our swamp where they’ll soon begin gathering the many sticks they’ll need to build their sturdy nests. I recognize the first birds back each year – like old friends that you haven’t seen in a long time it’s always so wonderful to have them back. Sometimes when I’m in the yard and one soars by, I imagine that I’m in prehistoric times and there is no civilization around – just this magnificent creature in the sky.

It appears that we have a record number of Wood Stork nests this year – likely well over 300 – and they’ve even built two nests in a tree that we can see from the house – a welcome first. I shot the first three clips in this video sitting on the living room floor and shooting through a double-paned window. When early nest building is in full swing, it’s not unusual to have 3 or 4 storks walking around the yard looking for sticks. This time of year when many nests have growing nestlings, the parents seem to be bringing grape vines and other soft leaves to the nest. They also appear to be traveling to the coast, about 40 miles away, in small groups of 3-5 birds in order to feed, and we then see them flying in V-shaped formations back to feed their young.

As of June 6th we had at least 10 storks that had fledged, some of them quite good flyers already. As I’ve seen in previous years, I saw one newly-fledged bird balanced precariously in the top of a cypress tree, with a watchful parent in the top of the next tree. They continue to return to their nests for a number of weeks, and I think that the parents make sure they know where to go on their first flight or two. Their long pinkish toes aren’t made to grip, and they just drape them over branches, making balancing difficult even for adults – especially when they have to throw their weight back in order to break a branch from a larger limb. Their instinct to gather sticks is strong even when they’re young, and the cutest thing I’ve seen all season was a just-fledged stork flying with a tiny stick that he had collected, taking it back to his hopefully proud parents.

My discussion on the Jehovah’s Witnesses and evolution

June 12, 2019 • 9:45 am

Lloyd Evans, an ex-Jehovah’s Witness (JW), runs a regular video series, the John Cedars Channel, in which he criticizes that bizarre religion and tries to support ex-JWs and to address those on the fence.

Last week I had a Skype conversation with Lloyd in which he asked me to respond to a number of anti-evolution statements made in JW pamphlets. (The religion is obdurately creationist.)

The statements that I was asked to address were rather convoluted as well as ignorant, but I did my best. The resulting video is below, and I haven’t watched it. I wasn’t really aware that I was going to be filmed, so I was wearing my usual Hawaiian shirt and may evince some annoying mannerisms. So be it: the biology is what’s important here.