Category: video

Readers’ wildlife photos and video

June 8, 2019 • 7:30 am

Today we have two disparate but engaging items: a photo and a video.

The video (no ducks were harmed in this clip!) comes from our friend Tara Tanaka, whose note are indented (her Vimeo site is here, and her Flickr site is here). Be sure to enlarge the video before watching. (Tara promises more video of young wood storks soon.)

This spring our very large female alligator brought her 20+ babies to the end of a little spit of land that sticks out in the swamp from our yard and set up camp there for almost two months. From her lookout she could see two Wood Duck boxes not more than fifty feet away, and there were hens incubating eggs in each box. We’ve had gators appear just as baby ducks hatch, and I knew that she would be able to hear the babies when they eventually hatched. I was really worried that a hen would drop to the water to bring her babies out, and the gator would make the most of the “sitting ducks.” I didn’t want to see it in person, but I did want to know what happened. For weeks I got up early and set up one camera on the back porch that would include the area around both boxes, and I also set up two cameras using very high focal lengths in the living room window – one pointed at each box.
At least twice a day the gator could see the drakes come by and “pick up” their hens to feed, and then again see them “drop them off” at their boxes. Apparently the gator had watched the hen enter the box on the left numerous times and assumed that she entered that hole and flew through the back of the box. On this morning I had put out the wide angle camera about 7:05am, and at 7:11 this was what occurred. The gator launched herself at least 3 1/2′ in the air – probably using her tail against the bottom in the shallow water.

Unfortunately we went out of town during the time that we think the babies hatched, however we did see a brood of 8 with one hen and a brood of 2 with another a couple of weeks after we returned. We don’t know why, but when they were about 4 weeks old I saw the 2 ducklings and the group of 8 ducklings alone in the swamp, and I never saw either of their mothers again. The 8 became 6 and they adopted the 1 that survived of the 2, and they raised themselves all alone in the swamp until the other day when they all began flying. They are in smaller groups now, flying into the yard to feed.

And then, from reader Tim Anderson in Oz, we have an astronomy photo. His notes:

NGC 6744 is a face-on spiral galaxy in the Pavo constellation, which is close to the Southern Cross. Also visible in the image are several faint galaxies.

The image was made from sixty 300-second subframes taken with an ASI071MCPro camera and a Skywatcher Esprit 100mm refractor on an EQ8 mount. Average guiding RMS of 0.11 arcseconds (best I have ever achieved).

Readers’ wildlife photos (and video): Osprey rescue!

May 30, 2019 • 8:15 am

Reader Glenn Butler sent photos and videos of an osprey rescue in Virginia Beach, Virginia, in which Glenn participated. The bird had become entangled in fishing line and then in a tree. Glenn’s notes are indented:

At ten o’clock Memorial Day morning, we received an emergency text from an experienced wildlife rehabilitator regarding a stranded osprey (Pandion haliaetus). The hapless raptor was reportedly hanging from a sweetgum tree over a lake, baking under full exposure in midday heat. No one knew how long he had been trapped, but at least since six o’clock the previous evening and probably longer.

Once we located the bird, we saw his body waving in the wind, appearing as limp and lifeless as an abandoned kite. For an anxious few minutes we tried playing osprey alarm calls and strained to see any movement. Sadly we saw nothing. The tree ensnaring the poor creature was densely covered in poison ivy, and after believing the bird to be dead, we decided to abandon the rescue.

While packing to leave, other volunteers approached from the lakeside by pontoon and saw slight movement. Scott Beecher, an expert arborist and tree climber quickly set a climbing line, ascended the tree, and devised a strategy for bringing the bird down with a rigging line. His willingness to brave an almost impenetrable wall of poison ivy without sleeves surely helped give this magnificent osprey a second chance. Please read the newspaper article [link below] for more details. The osprey is currently in raptor rehab, and we hope to share a video of a successful release in a few days.

First, a photo from The Virginian-Pilot in the article about the rescue (this photo was by Rudy Carrera).

Pictures by Glenn:

And the rescue video made by Glenn. Kudos to him and his fellow rescuers!

Machine learning creates realistic videos from just a few photographs

May 25, 2019 • 11:00 am

From TechCruch.com, via reader Rick, we learn that AI programs have become so sophisticated that they can create motion, and videos, from as little as one photograph of a human face, though of course more photographs gives a better result. From the report:

The model is documented in a paper published by Samsung AI Center, which you can read here on Arxiv. It’s a new method of applying facial landmarks on a source face — any talking head will do — to the facial data of a target face, making the target face do what the source face does.

. . .The new paper by Samsung’s Moscow-based researchers, however, shows that using only a single image of a person’s face, a video can be generated of that face turning, speaking and making ordinary expressions — with convincing, though far from flawless, fidelity.

It does this by frontloading the facial landmark identification process with a huge amount of data, making the model highly efficient at finding the parts of the target face that correspond to the source. The more data it has, the better, but it can do it with one image — called single-shot learning — and get away with it. That’s what makes it possible to take a picture of Einstein or Marilyn Monroe, or even the Mona Lisa, and make it move and speak like a real person.

Here’s an example of what they can do with one shot of the Mona Lisa:

But that’s about it for La Giocanda:

That said, it’s remarkable that it works as well as it does. Note, however, that this only works on the face and upper torso — you couldn’t make the Mona Lisa snap her fingers or dance. Not yet, anyway.

Here is an explanation of how it’s done, as well as some examples of what the programs can do when trained on multiple photographs. Imagine the fake videos that will ensue!

 

Reader’s wildlife video

May 25, 2019 • 7:45 am

Tara Tanaka (Vimeo page here, Flickr page here) sent a lovely video of an endangered bird: the red-cockaded woodpecker (Leuconotopicus borealis). Her notes are below, and be sure to enlarge the video when you watch it and put the sound on.

In 2011 I videoed the installation of an artificial cavity in a tree at Tall Timbers Research Station in northern Florida, where a reintroduction program of the endangered Red-cockaded Woodpecker has been in place since 2006. After the hole had been artfully cut and the box installed, Michael Keys climbed another tree about 75’ away and drilled an “assisted start” hole to give the woodpeckers a head-start on a “natural” cavity. Last week I visited the tree in which the starter hole had been drilled and videoed parents and a male helper feed chattering young in the cavity.

Most people have never seen this endangered bird, even one so high in a pine that it’s hard to identify, and it’s very unusual to get to see the red feathers that are usually hidden on the male’s head. During these feedings there was something that caused one of the males to call numerous times while lifting the feathers on the top of his head, revealing that tiny group of red feathers, distinguishing him as a male. In filming these birds I set up my camera away from the cavity, positioned my tripod, focused and adjusted the exposure, pushed the record button and walked about 200’ away to keep from disturbing their feeding. This is a compilation of the highlights of approximately three-hours of feeding.

Note that the bird is banded. Be sure to watch for the red cockade about 53 seconds in.

Tara will be around to answer any questions you have in the comments.

Readers’ wildlife videos

May 16, 2019 • 7:30 am

Reader Rick Longworth sent me a lovely murmuration video of starlings avoiding a harrier attack. His notes:

A friend at our birding group, Jan Boles, shot footage last fall of a murmuration of European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) encountering a northern harrier (Circus hudsonius).  He asked me to edit it for him, so I added some titles and music.  The harrier’s tactic is to fly above the flock and suddenly dive straight down to snag a meal. Note that at 50 seconds in, the harrier swoops down and appears to get his talons on a starling.  But the starling flies clear and the harrier looks empty handed.  I reiterated that event at a slower speed for a closer look.

This video is posted with Jan’s permission.

 

Sunday: Duckling report

May 12, 2019 • 7:45 am

In lieu of Reader’s Wildlife today, I present Katie Peck and her brood of ten (all still alive and thriving). Happy Mother’s Day!

With Gregory, sitting on the brood (you can see one tiny head beneath her). This was two days ago when it was chilly, and she was keeping them warm and protected:

 

One lone duckling:

And some of its siblings:

The family having lunch on Friday:

Reader’s wildlife video and photo

April 29, 2019 • 7:30 am

Tara Tanaka (Vimeo site here, and Flickr site here) is back with a lovely video of inter-sibling rivalry between two Great Egret (Ardea alba) chicks. Her description of this avian Frog Fight is below.

Six days after videoing three young Great Egrets in this nest, I returned to find only two. The feeding process is brutal, and it’s a wonder that there aren’t a lot of one-eyed egrets. For a brief moment the chick with its back to the camera had the frog – but his joy was short-lived as the chick facing the camera immediately grabbed it from him, feet first. It was probably the backwards orientation that kept him from being able to quickly swallow it, and once again, when opportunity presented itself, the original chick quickly snatched it out of the beak and throat of his sibling. It’s not over until it’s over.

Watch on full screen and be sure to listen all the way to the end. See if you can figure out what’s supposed to be happening at the end.

And here’s an astronomy photo from reader Tim Anderson.

This is NGC5139 – the Omega Centauri globular star cluster. It is one of the glories of the Southern Hemisphere skies and is easily visible to the naked eye on a dark night. This image was compiled from eighty 60-second exposures taken with a 100mm refracting telescope and a colour astronomical camera.