UWOL 18 Tales of Wonder & Woe

[Steve Siegel]

OMG Cat,

I have spent the last 30 years looking for that bird in every state west of the Plains with no success, and here is one in your yard. I am totally jealous. Yes, it is a juvenile.

[Per Johan Naesje]

Wow Cat, that´s amazing to hear! This is why I find nature and wildlife filming so fascinating, you never know what´s coming up! In most cases you have do do some bate/hide for several months to get shots like this.

Yesterday I was at my bird feeding station for more footage when a Spotted Nutcracker showed up, for me a amazing bird I never seen before!
It was feeding on some nuts and seeds among lots of different kind of other birds, when it suddenly attacked a Blue Tit. This happened way to fast for me to get any shoots of when it flew away with a screaming Tit in its bill. To my knowledge the birds in the crow family don´t do such kill quite often and for me it was first time i witness such a action.
Life is real hard for small creatures.

[Catherine Russell]

Hi you guys

Thanks for piling on! I knew I could rely on Dale, Steve and Per to know exactly the type, sex and age of this bird. It is also due to the fact that I have hung out with the UWOL community these past years to know what a gift this really is.

Just a little more background info to let you know how unrealistically this all happened:

My husband Ed was getting the goats and burros up in the morning when he saw the kill happen. Unfortunately, she made the kill inside the burro pasture where of course the burros would eventually not leave her alone long enough to eat. That's why we have them, they are good guard animals. The goshawk flew away. When Ed reported this all to me, we decided to move the dead rabbit to another more private area that would give her a little more peace and me a good filming opportunity. Decadent no? She came back to the moved rabbit and enjoyed her feast while I (still in my PJs!) was able to film her. I was astonished at how she allowed me to slowly get closer and closer until I was filming maybe 30 feet away or so(?).

I know, crazy. Hardly the stamina and fortitude you guys exhibit in your wildlife filming pursuits, but it was there!

Per, I wonder if you are the first to witness such an event between the Spotted Nutcracker and the Blue Tit? The wild is a rapturous and amazing continuous event, no?

Dale, I'm glad to see you might be going big in parts of your entry with the detail theme!

Steve, in your trek across the US for the goshawk, venture over to my backyard! We can sit on our deck and toast a cold one.... and who knows? It could happen again!

Cat

[Mike Sims]

Nice shots, Catherine! My only two sightings in Texas were of juvenile birds at this time of year and in both cases they remained in the area for weeks on end, so- keep watching.

How exciting, Per Johan. I’m sorry you weren’t able to get any shots, I would have liked to see that! Sometimes even under the best of circumstances things just happen too unexpectedly and too fast. I remember once walking to my blind in a marsh when a black rail crossed the path four feet in front of me with a rodent in it’s bill. I’ve not seen documentation of any rail predating on mammals. I felt quite embarrassed later that I was standing there, camera in hand, and missed it.

I’m glad everyone seems to be doing well, but I have run into another complication. A field study that I declined while shooting for the long form has come back to haunt me. The client didn’t hire the biologist I recommended and instead hired two college students. The students did a good job of setting up the field work but found they were in over their heads when it came to analysis and reporting. It’s not their fault because the client mislead them. The project is so far behind that the permitting agency has become frustrated and hired me to review the work and see if I can get them back on track. I am now struggling to find time for UWOL.

[Dale Guthormsen]

Cat,

While you have native goshawks in colorado it is the time of year that the far Northern Goshawks are moving through. the fundamental difference is that the birds from the boreal forst have virtually no interaction with man and therefore are much tamer!! It is not uncommon to stand 15 feet from them as they eat. A friend of mine actually captured a male by hand laying on his stomach and grabbed it by its feet, took a couple pictures and let it go!! Personally I would have rather got close up video. Here Sept is a huge goshawk migration time. Every small town in the prairies is an island and they come to them for cover and food. I keep my roller pigeons in the loft for the month of september as they will kill one or two a day!! Our neighbor had a female gos fly through her living room window. she picked up and was knocking at my door at 6 am. I rehabbed it and turned it loose a couple weeks later. I really look forward to seeing your footage.

[Per Johan Naesje]

Well, I got the beginning of the attack and as I decided not to use this in my final film - here it is!

This is a quick and dirty edit compressed to only 1.17MB of size, but I think it shows some very strange and rare behavior.

BTW, as the theme says "intimate detail" and I had to use my very long lenses, the 24-105mm could be used for other tasks ;-)

[Mike Sims]

“Other tasks”… like, ummm- drinking coffee? ; - ) That’s a great shot even without the new bird and unusual behaviour. I can’t wait to see what you have for us this time. I just hope I am able to finish one.

[Marj Atkins]

I hope your review of the students’ work goes quickly Mike so you will be able to finish your entry.

I must admit that things are going very slowly here due to work, but some amazing things happening out there by the looks of it.

Lovely shots of the immature Northern Goshawk Cat - and Dale that sun rise is spectacular with the clouds picking up all those colours. Hope you did a time-lapse of that.

The Spotted Nutcracker and the Blue Tit are birds foreign to us – nothing like that here. Really interesting footage you got Per. The bird feeding table is known to be a place of aggressive behaviour because of the pecking order but that was really aggressive!

Look forward to seeing what everyone has managed to put together.

[Bill Thesken]

I've been filming one of the strangest creatures on the planet for the past week, under water. I never would have even thought of studying this species if it wasn't for this challenge, and it's been very enlightening. The facts and science aside, after following this thing for a week I see habits and personality and there's a bit of a bond now. Unfortunately my camera froze on me when I was in position to get the footage of the century, and I can't get any more shots. I think I have enough footage, but I just wanted more.

[Kevin Railsback]

I'm sitting at 999 Green on the 21st floor overlooking San Francisco Bay. An incredible view but certainly not the Yeti's natural habitat.

Headed out of SFO tomorrow so hopefully I'll be able to get some footage for my entry. Not much down time built in but we'll see how it goes.

[Dale Guthormsen]

Per,

You always seem to come up with some sort of amazing footage!!!

With the recent change in weather and its effects I just may not be able to fulfill the intimate detail theme.


The birds I was really trying to get have moved out. I have some footage but not that intimate or detailed.

I am trying to come up with a different idea.

[Per Johan Naesje]

Change in weather here too! Winter has come, last night snowfall all night, so today the scenery is crisp and white. I have some days off next week and will do some more footage in real winter weather. Forecast says a temperature of as low as 5 F (-15 C). Gonna be very cold sitting there for hours!

Another Spotted Nutcracker showed up today. Had to go out and shop for more nuts. They have consumed 5 kg of nuts, 15 kg of Sunflower seeds, in 14 days!

It´s going to be a very expensive winter :-)

[Catherine Russell]

Originally Posted by Dale Guthormsen

With the recent change in weather and its effects I just may not be able to fulfill the intimate detail theme.
The birds I was really trying to get have moved out. I have some footage but not that intimate or detailed.

I am trying to come up with a different idea.

Hey Dale:

Hang in there with your entry. The invitation is open for you to share the kind of footage you have and maybe we can all give it a bit of thought and come up with an angle that might help you move forward with the theme.

You shared a beautiful sunset awhile back.... maybe you can start with that? If nothing pans out, I have no problems with getting you some of my raw footage of the immature goshawk to see what you come up with using that.

Cat

[Rich Ryan]

The good news is that the past weekend was beautiful here in Northern California - it was sunny and unseasonably warm.

And some bad news...

I had some cooperation, but unfortunately it seems I am too early for some of the footage I was hoping for and too late for others. At least I found one male Tarantula out "looking for love." He wasn't being very cooperative, but I think I have something I can use.

I have some clips, but I may need a slight adjustment to my storyline to make any use of it.

At least I got a good hike in yesterday. (-:

[Marj Atkins]

Originally Posted by Rich Ryan

I have some clips, but I may need a slight adjustment to my storyline to make any use of it.

I have a similar problem - my original storyline was too long to fit into three minutes and trying to shorten it caused it to lose all meaning. Have had to re-think my story a bit. At least I have most of my footage - just one last sequence on Thursday - weather-permitting.

Originally Posted by Per Johan Naesje

Another Spotted Nutcracker showed up today. Had to go out and shop for more nuts. They have consumed 5 kg of nuts, 15 kg of Sunflower seeds, in 14 days!

It´s going to be a very expensive winter :-)

Wow Per. Perhaps you can tail it off slowly.