Tuca - The Naughty Toucan - UWOL Fun Shoot by Paul Wood
 

Some footage I had laying about, and was not sure what to do with it.

A relative of my wife belongs to an Animal Rescue group in Brazil, and had rescued a baby Toucan, which they then brought to their farm. After a few months in a cage, they released it, and it slowly began to explore the neighbouring area, until arriving one morning at our farm (about 1Km away).

As time passed, and Tuca became more familiar with our presence, helped no doubt by my mother in law giving it bits of hot dog, until we were surprised one morning by it entering the kitchen ( I was doing a food shoot - hence the light stand), and then became more daring, until it was happy to rob food from the cooker.
As I had a camera handy, I was able to record the last scenes, as we tried to encourage it to leave - one thing is being close to nature, and another is having Toucan droppings on your keyboard....

As a happy ending, it eventually moved further away from home, and we believe got a mate, but we left Brazil before we could finish the story.

p.s., I forgot to add - it potato salad as the main dish!


Please be as critical as you like - you know I'm happy to learn!

Re: Tuca - The Naughty Toucan - UWOL Fun Shoot by Paul Wood
 

Paul, I recently moved to Canada and thought we had problems with the wild life here. It is nothing like that though!

I thought you did a good job of putting the footage, some of which is obviously serendipitous together to give a meaningful video. Good music and audio mix.

I never knew their beaks were so translucent.

Re: Tuca - The Naughty Toucan - UWOL Fun Shoot by Paul Wood
 

Hi Paul:

This really is amazing footage. It's not everyone who can claim having a semi-wild Toucan in their kitchen. What a wonderful thing! Not only to have it come into your kitchen, but that you just happened to be there with camera ready, filming something else. These two circumstances in combination rarely ever happen.

This bird is spectacular. It eating your potato salad until you finally had to take it away very amusing, and your choice of music wraps this up into a humorous little story.

Thanks Paul for the excursion!
Cat

Re: Tuca - The Naughty Toucan - UWOL Fun Shoot by Paul Wood
 

Hi Paul,

I see Tuca has trained you well to feed him the way he wants.

A suggestion:
Use the clip from 0:22 as your introduction, and then your current first clip as the 2nd to reveal which bird it is.

Cool music too.

Re: Tuca - The Naughty Toucan - UWOL Fun Shoot by Paul Wood
 

Paul,

How fortunate you were to had this opportunity to film this despite the bird droppings! :)

You not only have a great story to tell but you have the footage to back it up!

I always worry about wildlife acclimated to people as they usually end up getting in trouble and never ends well but it sounds like this one has a happy ending and that's awesome!!

Hope to see you next month for the challenge!!

Re: Tuca - The Naughty Toucan - UWOL Fun Shoot by Paul Wood
 

Paul,

I couldn't stop smiling throughout this whole video. Having had a semi-wild parrot for a couple of months,
I know the pleasure of having a brazen bird ruling your house. I hope Tuca has learned the difference between a stove with cold potato salad and water, and one with a fire on! The feeding sequence was just a bit too long. A couple of shots taken from different angles would have broken it up nicely.

Re: Tuca - The Naughty Toucan - UWOL Fun Shoot by Paul Wood
 

Paul one suggestion would have been get a screen for the window . :) I have to say that I haven't heard of a bird eating potato salad never mind seeing it. Interesting video and thanks for sharing.

Gordon

Re: Tuca - The Naughty Toucan - UWOL Fun Shoot by Paul Wood
 

Hi Paul.
I love that crazy Toucan, haha.
What a great approach, this is a clever one.
Maybe a bit too much of the feeding scene?
Hope to see you in the next round.
Thank you.

Cheers!

Re: Tuca - The Naughty Toucan - UWOL Fun Shoot by Paul Wood
 

Thank you all for your comments!

I agree the final feeding scene could have been shorter - I already cut some from the middle, but there's always a temptation when cutting to a piece of music to stretch to footage a bit to fit the music, rather than cutting the music!

Its very lucky to have been able to get such footage - I had been trying for months to get good shots of toucans - especially when they are chased by other birds - supposedly for raiding nests and eating eggs. This was common sight, especially in the early mornings.

Steve, we also had a parrot, given under similar circumstances as the toucan - Ill put together a sequence, and post - especially one morning, I was alone at the farm, and heard someone humming and whistling - every time I went outside, it stopped, but I was eventually able to record the singing and whistling, from a previously very quiet bird.

Re: Tuca - The Naughty Toucan - UWOL Fun Shoot by Paul Wood
 

Wow
This one is interesting, i like it all the way as the footage and music keep you hooked.

Nicely done

Re: Tuca - The Naughty Toucan - UWOL Fun Shoot by Paul Wood
 

Paul, great video. He looked very happy eating potato salad off the stove. I have been to both the north and the south Pantanal and got to see and feel quite a few of them in the wild. It is an amazingly beautiful country. These, and the Hyacinth macaws are probably one of the most beautiful birds I have ever seen. Great job keeping him under control. Bob.