Okay, which continent now?
Friday December 28th 2012, 12:32 am
Filed under: Wildlife

Watching (thank you Sam!) David Attenborough and The Life of Birds series on the monitor next to this one.  Geese, 1700 miles in 70 hours of migration.   The longest beak-t0-bird ratio in the world, kind of like a knitter who dropped her ball of yarn and keeps walking and then turns around at the end of the house to see, is the best visual I can think of to describe its immense length.  Acorn woodpeckers, which I once saw at work in Pacific Grove, a whole tree trunk solid with acorns stuffed rattattat up the sides, and Attenborough’s mention that each family keeps its own tree, moving acorns as they shrink to holes small enough for them. I did not know that. Close-ups. Slow-motions. Details.

I have no idea what he said that one was just now, but it looked very Harry Potterish: bright turquoise, with a long forked tail that swoops around in an S curl behind and below as it takes to the air.

A pretty–and I’d guess little–bird broke off a dried narrow stick and used it to stab into the crevice in a tree to shiskabob insects. Now a crow’s doing that, too. Somehow they got a camera into the worm’s side of things, showing that beak coming in at it and the worm playing dodgeball. Wait–what was that eating the zebra’s ear wax? And how did we get there?

Highly recommended, if you get a chance to watch these.


3 Comments so far
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Thanks for the recommendation. I’m sure I’ll love these, too, and have added them to my Netflix queue.

Isn’t it wonderful the things adult children can introduce one to.

Comment by RobinM 12.28.12 @ 7:59 am

Thanks for the tip, and thank you Robin for reminding me to look for it on Netflix. Birds can be pretty amazing; just ask mine.

Comment by Don Meyer 12.28.12 @ 9:48 am

Last night we watched a Nature program on the Balkan area. It was very strangely written with so many references to Lord of the Rings (**very** strange) but the visuals were amazingly beautiful and some of the wildlife really interesting. I have the DVR set to record all the Nature programs on PBS, so whatever it catches, I get to see.

Comment by Susan (sjanova) 12.30.12 @ 6:59 am



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