Readers’ wildlife video

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 […]

My discussion on the Jehovah’s Witnesses and evolution

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 […]

Readers’ wildlife photos and video

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 […]

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

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 […]

Machine learning creates realistic videos from just a few photographs

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, […]

Reader’s wildlife video

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 […]

Readers’ wildlife videos

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 […]

Sunday: Duckling report

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:   […]

Reader’s wildlife video and photo

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, […]

Reader’s wildlife videos

We haven’t heard from Tara Tanaka in a while, as she’s been traveling and off the grid. But I found that she’s posted several wonderful wildlife videos, three of which I reproduce here (along with her notes, which I’ve indented) with her permission. The first two videos are orchestrated with classical music. Tara’s Vimeo site […]