In the early 1980’s two hundred pairs of common terns (Sterna hirundo) were forced to abandon their last natural nesting place on a river island near a major European capital Riga. Looking for a new habitat, the birds chose the flat pebbled roof of a concrete island – a printing house – in the middle of the city. The first generation of birds to grow up on this roof and fly to Southern Africa every winter have covered the distance from the Earth to the Moon. During the film various human attitudes towards the terns will emerge. The attitude of the birds is clear – they view things form above.
In the early 1980’s two hundred pairs of common terns (Sterna hirundo) were forced to abandon their last natural nesting place on a river island near a major European capital Riga. Looking for a new habitat, the birds chose the flat pebbled roof of a concrete island – a printing house – in the middle of the city. The first generation of birds to grow up on this roof and fly to Southern Africa every winter have covered the distance from the Earth to the Moon. During the film various human attitudes towards the terns will emerge. The attitude of the birds is clear – they view things form above.
2001-04-26
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Ornithologist Seán Ronayne from Cobh, Co. Cork is on a mission to record the sound of every bird species in Ireland – that’s nearly 200 birds. Often joined by his partner Alba, he travels to some of the country’s most beautiful and remote locations to capture its most elusive species and soundscapes: the busy seabird colony of Skellig Michael; a native woodland free from road noise in the Burren; the corncrake stronghold of Tory Island; a solitary nest in the Donegal uplands. Along the way we get to know Seán, whose hypersensitivity to sound has proven both a struggle and a strength. At once inspiring and cautionary, Seán’s journey illustrates the beauty and importance of sound, and what listening can tell us about the state of our natural world.
Birds as pets is a foreign concept to many Singaporeans. Many would assume it to be an elderly man’s hobby. However, a new trend of keeping parrots is arising but many are still ignorant to the joys and issues associated with caring for these exotic pets. Focusing on three bird owners, this documentary discusses their experiences with keeping birds.
David Attenborough narrates this close up look at these tiny pollinators captured in flight as never before. Acrobats of the air - flying jewels - iridescent partners of countless plants: hummingbirds are amongst the most remarkable creatures on our planet.
The long running, often bitter scientific debate over the origin of birds and the evolution of flight.
Flyways follows endangered migratory shorebirds as they travel their ancient migration routes around the planet. Using nanotechnology and global tracking from the International Space Station, the project will uncover the paths of the world’s greatest, feathered endurance athletes and shine a light on the scientists and international lawyers who are collaborating to save them.
This film documents the efforts of a group of Canadians and Americans to save the whooping crane from extinction. They display great determination in their dealings with this independent, pre-Ice Age creature. The issues of wild animals imprinting on people and the preservation of wild animals in captivity are examined in this film. Produced in cooperation with the Canadian Wildlife Service and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.
Costa Rica's motto is Pura Vida - Pure Life - and this deceptively small country is bursting with some of the most spectacular wildlife and pristine ecosystems in the world. All this diversity thrives, in part, thanks to one surprising little creature: hummingbirds. Venture across Costa Rica's wild and rugged landscapes, from volcanic peaks to coastal jungle to misty cloud forests and discover the nation's dazzling diversity of hummingbirds. Watch how these tiny birds play an outsize role in maintaining some of the richest and wildest environments on Earth, where a whole community of creatures, such as macaws and monkeys, enjoys The Hummingbird Effect.
Reclaiming what was once stolen from him, a man journeys back to the place of his childhood nearly 80 years after his world came crashing down.
The story of Darwin's finches and their relationship with other creatures of the Galapagos; tracing their evolution, how the islands were formed and how it's main inhabitants got there.
Directed by Patrick Gramm, 'The Pigeon People' (2023) takes you deep into Arizona's underground pigeon racing scene as racing rivals prepare for and compete in the Grand Canyon Classic - a 350-mile pigeon race from Utah to Arizona that crosses over the Grand Canyon.
The Iron Man takes us on an introspective journey into the life of Toni, a man who finds in art and nature the essential pillars of his existence. The creation of iron and stone sculptures, together with work in the countryside as a gardener, help him to find beauty in the simplicity of life. His vision of life, as if he were a ‘rural philosopher’, will teach us to break down stigmas about mental health and to look at life from a hopeful perspective.
Some of the world's most majestic birds display delightfully captivating mating rituals, from flashy dancing to flaunting their colorful feathers.
This film documents the yearly cycle of the great blue heron, its migration from Central America and the West Indies to the St. Lawrence River in Québec, and the breeding and rearing of its young. Outstanding footage shot by the filmmaker perched high in a tree affords close-ups of the birds' intricate courtship rituals. A sensitive, beautifully photographed nature film with much to tell us of ecology and wildlife.
In the first half of the 19th century, the French ornithologist Jean-Jacques Audubon travelled to America to depict birdlife along the Mississippi River. Audubon was also a gifted painter. His life’s work in the form of the classic book ‘Birds of America’ is an invaluable documentation of both extinct species and an entire world of imagination. During the same period, early industrialisation and the expulsion of indigenous peoples was in full swing. The gorgeous film traces Audubon’s path around the South today. The displaced people’s descendants welcome us and retell history, while the deserted vistas of heavy industry stretch across the horizon. The magnificent, broad images in Jacques Loeuille’s atmospheric, modern adventure reminds us at the same time how little - and yet how much - is left of the nature that Audubon travelled around in. His paintings of the colourful birdlife of the South still belong to the most beautiful things you can imagine.
In Pica Pica Kristersson invites the viewer to be enthralled for an hour and a half by the vicissitudes of magpie life. Opposing himself to the current nature films that tend to highly compress time in order to end up with a concentrated sequence of action-elements Kristersson leaves rhythm and tempo almost completely up to the magpies themselves. With great integrity he filmed the daily, social and emotional life of a species of birds that has many points of contact with human life. Thus, the movie offers us the oppurtunity to view our own everyday existence through other eyes, from a world right above our heads, but yet so far away.
Did Cartier dream of making a country from this land of a million birds? In his records of his exploration he certainly marvelled at seeing the great auks that have since disappeared from Isle aux Ouaiseaulx, the razor-bills and gannets that are gone from Blanc-Sablon, and the kittiwakes from Anticosti, all the winged creatures of all the islands which he described as being "as full of birds as a meadow is of grass". And that's not even counting the countless snow geese.
Angry birds are very popular- especially among game-playing kids, but are there real angry birds out there? Birds battle to survive, find food, and shelter, avoid danger, and raise their young. Life's hard, but will they get in a flap?
On the eve of her 70th birthday, Canadian writer Margaret Atwood set out on an international tour criss-crossing the British Isles and North America to celebrate the publication of her new dystopian novel, The Year of the Flood. Rather than mount a traditional tour to promote a book's publication, Atwood conceived and executed something far more ambitious and revelatory--a theatrical version of her novel. Along the way she reinvented what a book tour could (and maybe should) be. But Atwood wasn't selling books as much as advocating an idea: how humanity must respond to the consequences of an environmentally compromised planet before her work of speculative fiction transforms into prophesy.