Videos

Video of robins, blue tits, long-tailed tits and a great tit, bullfinches and a green finch feeding on a bird table. The squirrel also puts in a flying visit.

Trying to improve my video skills by practicing on zoo animals.

Featuring polar bears, hippos, including the zoo’s most latest star, a recently-born hippo, pelicans and kangaroos.

Our closest relatives among the great apes also put in an appearance, behind glass sadly: gorillas, chimps and the zoo’s fascinating bonobo family.

The herons which appear are free loaders. There is at least one heronry in the trees growing in the zoo, and probably several in the nearby Tiergarten. The herons descend on the zoo to try to grab the fish which the keepers are distributing as food for the pelicans and other zoo birds.

A short video clip of one of the West Park herons which was featured yesterday, its long feathers moving in the wind as it stands staring at the boating lake.

Video of a red admiral butterfly spreading its wings on a sunny wall trying to warm itself, and having a struggle to hold on in the autumn breeze.

Actually, almost certainly the same uninvited guest which already featured in a video here.

This female squirrel, which may have only recently had young, scoops up all the food left for the birds again. As she heads off, she leaves behind a small puddle, presumably as a territorial marker.

Video of a brief visit to a bird table

A squirrel trying to eat as much as it can of some food which has been left out for birds.

Something else I tried out for the first time: the high speed movie mode on my camera. This is of a wasp eating on an ivy flower.

Hopefully the picture quality will improve with practice. But even on a first try I was stunned watching the segments of the insect’s abdomen moving in relation to one another, and the way the antennae waved around.

My first try at an animated video. The robin (and the original of the picture) shown here was featured in a post
last February.

This fly was eating from flowers on the same ivy as Wednesday’s hoverfly. Video

On warm days at this time of year, lots of insects go wild for the nectar of ivy flowers. This hoverfly was one such. Video

A ladybird cleaning its legs and mouth parts. A couple of aphids also walk insouciantly by.

The ladybird is not the twelve spot species claimed in the closing titles of the video: corrected identification is as the title says.