UWOL#33 The Dawn Chorus at DVinfo.net
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Old April 1st, 2015, 12:16 PM   #1
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UWOL#33 The Dawn Chorus




For this challenge I decided I would concentrate on the dawn chorus in a small piece of private woodland that I have access too less than a 200 hundred metres from my home. Its a place I visit most mornings taking my dog for a walk. Normally this time of year we are treated to some gorgeous sunrises coupled a wonderful dawn chorus, but the past month has been unusually dull and cold, so much so that many of the early spring migrants have yet to arrive back on these shores. Hence I had to change the underlying theme from golden colour to golden time. My idea in the end was share with you golden moments from my early morning woodland walks. Last year I found the Nuthatch nest at around the same time as they were starting lay. This year I set a hide up early hoping they would return and I could film the nest repair, they duly obliged. It was whilst filming these early one morning that I noticed the long tailed tits flying past. I watched and managed to locate the nest they were building. Unfortunately for me the nest was almost completed, but a friend of mine living near Liverpool (home of the Beatles!!) had one in his grounds just starting to nest. As lives 200 miles north of me the birds are later nesting there. As I had to visit him, I filmed them and a used a very short clip from this visit at the start of the long tailed tit sequence. Everything was filmed in the woods during the past month, as well as my filming visit Liverpool. The wood is located just 100 metres south of the busy A27 south coast trunk road. It was difficult to get clean audio without the constant sound of traffic.I did manage to minimise it by recording with a directional mic facing south, but the main road was right behind where the little owl in the last sequence was sitting. I have have taken on board Steve's comments from a previous round and kept to natural sounds all the way through without any music. Anyway, hope you all enjoy, please comment as you wish, maybe at a 2/3 level.

Some of you may find the my friend Dave Cully (near Liverpool) web site interesting http://www.sparrowhawk-island.co.uk/

Mick
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Old April 2nd, 2015, 07:30 AM   #2
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Re: UWOL#33 The Dawn Chorus

Hi,Mick. I am so relieved to see you got the camera mended! Thanks for sharing your personal patch with us. I used to have one of those but two years ago the small town I live in hired a “Parks Manager” fresh out of school in Austin (pretty cheeky as we have only one small park). He promptly bulldozed down the trees and put in a Frisbee Golf Course. He actually told me “Why are you upset? It was only waste land”. (I informed him he was only “waste-brained”.) The worst of it is that no one in this town plays Frisbee Golf and we are now invaded by a bunch of rude yobos from Austin. I can empathize about the road noise. The highway I am 200 yards from now averages over 3500 large trucks every day. I have to do all of my VO recording in the wee hours. I enjoyed that Long-tailed Tit sequence. It is always a hoot for me when you show us one of your British birds I haven’t seen yet. Great behaviour clips this round. Best wishes. I can’t wait to see what you get up to next.
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Old April 3rd, 2015, 10:37 PM   #3
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Re: UWOL#33 The Dawn Chorus

Mick,

I like start of the video, very soothing chirping of the birds and the way voice over starts is simply nice.

The footage is nice, very mindfully selected pieces .

Bird footage is nicely woven in the film to have the morning story unfold.

The walk is nicely depicted and the viewer is rightly guided through the film .

Guess on all accounts this is a wonderful composition.

vishal
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Old April 3rd, 2015, 11:06 PM   #4
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Re: UWOL#33 The Dawn Chorus

Hi Mick,

I liked the all natural sound. Music could have been a distracting element here, I think.
You always seem to find the wildlife, and I liked the close up shots of the birds.

Well done, and thanks for sharing!
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Old April 4th, 2015, 12:47 PM   #5
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Re: UWOL#33 The Dawn Chorus

Vishal and Trond, Thanks for watching, pleased you enjoyed it.

Mike, Its down to a very understanding and flexible insurance company plus a company that located a low hours ex Sony demo camera that I got me back up and running. Although the repair cost was not far short of a new model the insurance company would not write it off. Because of the the major impact the camera received I was worried about any long term damage that was not immediately obvious subsequently manifesting its self after the guarantee expired, landing me with expensive repair bills. A company I have dealt with before located the same model camera. that was a Sony demo with full prime support and less than 30hrs use plus the remaining Sony Prime Support Warranty for the same price as the repair cost. My insurance company was happy to purchase that one for me in settlement of the claim.
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Old April 5th, 2015, 04:57 AM   #6
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Re: UWOL#33 The Dawn Chorus

Hi Mick.

Technically, you deliver a great video.
From its humble beginnings to the end, I'm with you on the walk through the woods.
The recognizable sounds of the birds makes me feel at home.
It is exciting to follow the story you spin around the birds and their habitat.
In fact, I wish I had such a forest nearby.
The wren is a cozy, familiar little bird that I find in my area, too.
And especially I like the Long-tailed tit. I know the bird breed in my area too, but I have yet to see it.
Should I poke on something, just a minor detail, it must be the sound of the wren, twittering.
Background noises are suddenly a notch higher before it goes back to normal again.
I think with a smooth transition on the soundtrack you will solve this?
The third time I looked through your video, I discovered that it was without music.
You provide a video without music - brilliant!
You fooled me for a moment, I thought determined there was music in the video.
Who needs music when one has a great story, and nature's own music in the form of birds chirping?
Many thanks for sharing and hope to see you in the next round, too.
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Old April 5th, 2015, 05:03 AM   #7
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Re: UWOL#33 The Dawn Chorus

Hi Mick

I think the bird sounds throughout take the place of any music. Music is often there to fill the void, but you had enough natural ambiance to do that anyway.

You certainly have a knack for capturing birds. It's great to see not just a few varieties of birds included, but detailed shots of what they get up to on a given morning. And all combined into a journey through the woodland tying everything together - which gave it an overarching story. So it's formed a well put together piece.

Hopefully the replacement camera serves you well, I'm sure you'll put it to good use.
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Old April 6th, 2015, 12:07 PM   #8
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Re: UWOL#33 The Dawn Chorus

Hi Mick

This is simply beautiful. Incredible footage of the Nut hatches, Little Owls and the Long-tailed Tits building their nest. It is accompanied by such interesting information too. (What is a spider cocoon? I thought that spiders only spun webs. Are you referring to the cocoons in which they wrap the catch or perhaps the egg cases?)

I love the way you stop on the way to the main subject of the story to discuss the small details along the way – in this film the snowdrops and the daffodils. It seems to build a bit of anticipation and adds to the overall story.

Just take care of the following continuity type problem: Prior to the shot at 0:40 you were walking into the scenes while moving towards the camera. At 0:40 you walk away from the camera which I found quite confusing as a viewer because you were saying “further into the wood . . .” which implied the same direction. However you were walking back into the wood. This did not make sense and broke the continuity of the scene. It is shot in exactly the same place as 1:17 where you walk in again. (Yeh, I know, it was the same scene but it didn’t work somehow). Take care to watch the direction in which a subject moves when walking in different scenes or show the subject (presenter or wildlife subject) actually turning within the scene to walk in a different direction.

This is a very neat, solid entry Mick with exceptional footage. I feel however that it lacks a bit of oomph. I think it may be because you did not talk to us while filming yourself but rather opted to film yourself as an objective observer of these wonderful woodland inhabitants. I think back to your film ‘Reed Warblers” where you spoke to us directly about the reed warbler from the bridge over the canal – that worked really well and somehow I feel it would have added a great deal to this piece if you had adopted the same presentation technique.

Hope this helps.
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Old April 7th, 2015, 02:03 AM   #9
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Re: UWOL#33 The Dawn Chorus

Thank you Andrew ,Geir and Marj for you comments they are very much appreciated. My original title was " Home is where the Heart is" The plan was to start with three short stock footage clips from my library 1) My wife and I eating breakfast at sunrise alongside the Talak river, Kenya, watching hippos in the river 2) Watching the Sunrise on a beach in Mexico watching breaching humpbacked whales 3) A tiger walking along a track in Bandhavgarh NP, India, again at sunrise. The idea was then to cut to the woods bathed in early morning sunlight and full of sound with the message that no matter where in the world you have travelled, home with all its smaller fauna and flora is just as beautiful and no more so than at dawn if you just take the time to stop, look and listen. Unfortunately the weather put pay to that idea as I was unable to film a sunrise in the wood that bathed it in that beautiful golden colour. I was probably a month in time too soon as yesterday morning would have been just perfect. I therefore had to change my plans otherwise the bulk of the the golden hour footage depicting golden colours had not been filmed specifically for this challenge.

Marj. Spider cocoons are their egg sac's, its the silk in the cocoon that make the nest elasticated. Long tailed tits are very early nest builders very late February early March probably to coincide with a specific spiders egg laying. You are right I should have said "as I continue my stroll" rather than "walk further into the woods"
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Old April 7th, 2015, 08:25 AM   #10
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Re: UWOL#33 The Dawn Chorus

That's interesting Mick. What do they do with the eggs inside? Do they open the egg sacs and eat them or do they use the egg sacs whole and then have to contend with all those hundreds of little spiders when they hatch? I must say I have never heard of this before nor seen such a stretchy nest. Your video shows this very well - it seems to give with every move they make inside.
I have watched our little Paradise Fly Catchers make a cup nest with fine grass, fine rootlets and decorate it with lichen - all held together with spider web.

Last edited by Marj Atkins; April 8th, 2015 at 12:29 AM.
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Old April 7th, 2015, 04:56 PM   #11
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Re: UWOL#33 The Dawn Chorus

Mick,

I enjoyed your entry. This is just the sort of filming I would like to do, if we actually had nesting songbirds here. Your steady images and long-enough shots made it a pleasure to watch. What is the thrush singing at several places in the background, eg. the Little Owl footage?
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Old April 8th, 2015, 02:27 AM   #12
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Re: UWOL#33 The Dawn Chorus

Hi, Steve, thanks for watching. The most prominent bird song you can hear is that of the Black Bird. Its morning song in early spring is one of the loudest and a real pointer that winter has ended and spring is has arrived. I am very lucky to have access to this piece of woodland as I can film undisturbed.
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Old April 8th, 2015, 10:57 AM   #13
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Re: UWOL#33 The Dawn Chorus

It sounds a lot like our American Robin, although the duration is shorter. I guess this is the one, 24 of which were baked into the pie?
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Old April 8th, 2015, 11:03 AM   #14
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Re: UWOL#33 The Dawn Chorus

You are right about the 4 and 20. The British robin, who makes an appearance early on in my entry, can also be heard at times. Your American robin in its juvenile stage looks very similar to our song thrushes (Turdus philomelos) that are in the same family as your robin and our blackbird. Our blackbird (Turdus merula) and your robin (Turdus migratorius) being from the same family probably explains why they have similar songs. Our robin (Erithacus rubecular) is a different family altogether. Hope that all that makes sense. Mick
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