This is from a security camera in Wichita KS.
Really amazing wildlife footage.
by CJ | Mar 15, 2012 | Journal | 16 comments
16 Comments
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http://www.dogwork.com/owfo8/
Watching those talons open makes me think “Glad I’m not a small mammal.” The film says eagle-owl, but eagle-owls are not native to NA (although their cousins, the Horned Owls, are). I think I catch a glimpse of jesses; I wonder if he’s not someone’s rescue bird?
Lynn’s remark was: “I have just lost all desire to be reincarnated as a mouse.” Great minds coming to a similar cosmic realization.
That is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.
This does not seem to be a security camera in Wichita KS
This looks like the Eurasian Eagle owl ‘Checker’ from sequences taken at Turbary Woods Owl & Bird of Prey Sanctuary near Preston UK. Notice the intense concentration at the last second as Checkers anticipates his landing point and the riveted leather anklets for the handling jesses that were removed for this flight.
The Eurasian Eagle Owl, with a wingspan of 138–200 cm (55–79 in), is larger than the North American Great Horned Owl, which has the ability to snap a broomstick with its talons.
This clip of ‘Checkers’ was captured in HD using a Photron SA-2 (Fastcam BC2) High Definition High Speed Camera, 1000fps 1920×1080 resolution and from the Sequences used to promote Freeview Digital TV in the UK.
(See http://www.slowmo.co.uk and http://www.photron.com and view the Gallery webpage and select Nature drom the left hand menu or append /index.php?cmd=gallery&cid=11&mv=11_02_eagleowl to the photron URL.
Link to a slightly longer clip shows Checkers further into the strike.
It looks like the Fastcam BC2 is slightly above and right of the Fastcam SA2.
The link text above should read ‘slightly shorter’
Interesting. It had a Wichita location on it when it reached me. Glad to have the clarification.
Yes. It appears that down-the-line email distortion is similar to that of word-of-mouth. I may also have got the position of the Photron Fastcam types muddled. Further viewing of the available footage suggests that 3 Fastcams may have been used with a third camera lower and to the left of the central camera. That seems not unreasonable since it was filmed for use in the promotion of Freeview Digital TV in the UK.
Beautiful bird! Amazingly well adapted for prey, isn’t it?
Yowza!
BTW, That 55-79-inch wingspan. . .my arm span is 65 inches from fingertip to fingertip. That’s a big bird!
One night I walked out of our Oklahoma City house, a few steps onto the lawn, near the narrow drainage between houses—this was the Ski Island house, with a lake just off the back yard…
I was aware of a low whisper of air, not the beat of an ordinary wing, and a broad, extraordinarily wing,from behind, brushed my hair in the dark and continued on over me: I instinctively put up my hand—whether I had started that motion at the sound or at the contact I can’t say—it was that fast. The broadest of array of feathers brushed over it. I had, in the next second, the silhouette of an owl’s broad, blunt wings against the night sky, passing over my lawn and out over the lake toward the little island and its trees. I was not even alarmed, though I was totally surprised. I was even amazed that I had not been frightened—the sound had forewarned me it was a bird, even if I could hardly hear it.
We had various predators set up shop over there, the smaller blue herons, once a Great Blue, night herons, egrets, cormorants/anhingas, a swan escaped from a fancy lake downtown, and once even a confused wild turkey—but this was one of the most uncommon. The word was Great Horned Owl, from those that had seen him by daylight. The silent approach is amazing. I used to have a hawk, and his wings were not silent—quiet, but not this quiet and not this large. I was used to the approach of geese, which have powerful wings, landing near me—ducks galore, and they buffet the air. This was the most amazing non-sound, and yet I heard it right at the last, before it brushed my hair with a wing and kept going. Of all wildlife encounters I had while living there, there are a few that are my favorites—this one, my first sighting of a night heron near my boat, the gathering of a thousand snowy egrets spiraling up and up and up in the sun, in a hole in the clouds, to catch the high winds for their migration south—or seeing our local flock of about twenty, all dyed pink by the sunset, settling in their tree as I would pass the island. Quite a wonderful place, for living close to nature.
Getting buzzed by an owl: wonderful! We have a couple of the small native pueo living in our area. Every once in a while we see one cutting across the road in pursuit of a mouse or rat, and once saw one doing slow loops around a strip mall parking lot; I’ve always considered a pueo sighting felicitous.
The edges of owl’s flight feathers are, well, feathered.
http://naturalpresence.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/trailing-edge-of-owl-wing-feather-tt-sm.jpg?w=500
The effect is to smooth the airflow.
That footage is really, really amazing!
My brother and I were watching it and I gasped, “Look at that wing action!!” as the owl is backwinging for his landing…and my brother said, “Sis, you read too much Mercedes Lackey.”
*shrug*
I’ve been buzzed by an owl once, too – though it was a much much smaller, Barred Owl, who nests in our neighborhood. Owls are among my favorite wild creatures to watch.
Thanks for sharing this, whether it came from Wichita or not!!
Agreed … a beautiful bird and really amazing photography … But if it had been a security camera in Wichita I’d have no-chance. I use a 1080 HD projector onto a 120″ by 120″ (2.4m x 2.4m) screen as my main monitor. Photron produce a viewer for raw footage from their cameras that you can download for Free. I have emailed SlowMO asking if they’d sent me some of the raw footage. I’m looking forward to being able to watch the bird fly towards me life sized and also at 2x life size with no pixelation and with me a yard from the screen. Wont that be even more breathtaking. As I said had it been a security camera in Wichita I’d have had no chance.