My Vimeo Channel Update
 

For those who have an interest in shooting birds and wildlife in general, I have added 14 clips of what Viemo calls HD video to my channel. These are edited m2t video files that I have compressed and rendered to avi files using SUPER. My output avi file was rendered at 1280x720 and at ~5000kbps using the H.264 codec, then uploaded to be further compressed to, I guess Flash. These finished avi file sizes are about 1/5th of the original m2t file, and still seem to maintain decent quality. This is the first time I have been able to capture HDV and work with m2t files, so this area is quite new for me, and I'm still learning. Anyway, comments are always welcome. The link below will take you the my channel.

WILD BIRDS and OTHER NATURAL THINGS on Vimeo

I know some of you have been looking, because of the dramatic increase in the number of views, thanks for your views. I just made a new version of this channel with only the HD stuff on it. The big difference is the increased size of the video playback. Enjoy.......

HD WILD BIRDS and OTHER NATURAL THINGS on Vimeo

Hi Don,
Watched them all. Though I couldn't add 'hearts' at vimeo, they are a joy to watch.
I saw that almost all are from May or September, is the Ventura river estuary a nature reserve , that you visited on those dates ?
For me May and September are migration season but some birds that you shot are singing .
Your shots of the Anna's Hummingbird are amazing .
Are you using a hides for those shots (not just the Hummingbird) ?
Cheers
Sassi

Sassi,
Glad you liked them, and thanks. May is spring migration here just like where you are, and fall is just the same, except going south instead of north. The Ventura River Estuary is a nature reserve, but it's still being developed and at the moment not strictly enforced to prevent loose dogs and human interference. The birds that are singing are spring visitors and breed locally. I don't use hides or blinds, since the birds aren't shot at like in Europe and the Middle East, so they are quite approachable, compared to your area. The Anna's Hummingbird is quite tame, and approachable within less than a meter. I made a perch for it, so he can be near one of my hummingbird feeders and guard it from other hummingbirds. I can set up and shoot him at will whenever the light is right. Your reply reminds me that I'll have to go to your Vimeo site and check your latest videos, since I always have enjoy them.......

Hi Don,

Just watched them all. My favorite is "How Close Is Close". I just started luring hummingbirds at my home with the right flowers and feeders. No keeper video yet but hopefully they will be back and remember the feeder locations for next year. One thing I noticed is that they are highly territorial. I never get two at the feeder at the same time. The dominate one keeps chasing the others off. They are very strange creatures to watch.

Enjoyed your new videos very much Don.

This encourages me to edit a few clips/stills together on Vimeo and advertise them here in due course.

Don,

I really liked the clip of the immature red shouldered hawk eating I reckon a ground squirrel or such.

As always they are all very nice!!

Dale,
It's eating a fresh water crayfish, which it grabbed out of about 6" of water in a drainage ditch. That was the third one it got during the short time I was watching it. It took the other two out of camera range to eat.....

I looked at the Burrowing Owl and it was sharp as a tack. I'll get to the others later. I just bought Vimeo's new Plus subscription and with that, they convert the HD videos with double-pass, which improves the image somewhat.

I didn't know that Vimeo had a higher level paid subscription, and again why would I subscribe to this. I use Dr. DivX for encoding my HDV mpg files. I set everything to the highest quality, 1280x720, 2 pass at 4000kbps, and deinterlace. This usually compresses to about 1/5th of the original file size. On occasion I also use SUPER to compress the HDV mpg files, specifying an AVI output, 1280x720, default single pass at 5280kbps, deinterlace, and using the H.264 codec. Both methods seem to work just fine, and it doesn't cost me anything except a little time, and heaven knows I have lots of that. Just to let you know, the Burrowing Owl was encoded to a DivX file using Dr. DivX.