Friday, 27 December 2013
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| Adult Male African Fish Eagle (Linda Wright!) |
Time for a bit of a rant I think. I just
watched Earth Flight well at least I did until I got too angry to watch it.
Someone needs to give all these cameramen and probably the editors a
lesson in ethics. If you know your birds you can see that to get the large
flocks flying dramatically (away from them please note) so that they can have
dramatic film, they are either flying a remote helicopter with a camera or a small plane over to
upset the birds, it is so obvious and in my book totally unacceptable. If these
birds are stressed in that way and yes of course it is stressful for them, it
just makes their survival that little bit harder. I don’t know my mammals as
well as my bird, but I have concerns about how they get the footage they do
with many of the hunts. A little more thought about the wildlife and a little
less about dramatic film would be a good idea.
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| Ruppell's Vulture |
The pictures from the Ruppells vulture and
the African Fish Eagle which are from camera’s mounted on their backs are very
poor and very misleading, as I suspect the backgrounds were put on afterwards
in most cases. The species of the vulture that is being spoken about changes several
times – do these people think we don’t notice!!!
No your average vulture does not fly at
five miles high, one Ruppell’s vulture was recorded at 36000 above sea level,
and please note that is sea level, it did not state how high the land was below it, and this a onetime siting I might
add. And normally vultures are flying at up to 10,000 at the most. Why do these
presenters always want to give you the utmost fact without qualifying it with
the norm. Its again misleading and can be dangerous to the species. However I
suspect they don’t think about consequences, they are only out to get the most
spectacular film regardless of how they get it.
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| African White-backed Vulture |
I was just sent a link for a CBBC series –
Deadly I think it was, the camera crew actually came here and we tested their
ring of camera’s for them in my field, and actually the birds were amazing and
I think we could have got some great stuff. They said they wanted to get wild
footage of a Bald Eagle snatching a fish from the circle of camera’s – I have
to say, knowing raptors as I do, I was pretty sure they would fail, and what we
got was some very average footage of a trained Bald Eagle with overly long
jesses picking up a floating bit of plastic with a bit of fish tied to it!! – out
of a large black bin full of water. Then you saw some very poor flying of a
trained peregrine (the usual 200 MPH quoted) flying to the presenter swinging a
lure, well sort of swinging it. The back ground was heavily treed and the bird
maybe got to about 100 feet, the speed was probably about 50 – 60 mph!! They
would have done better to film it here with us, our falcons don’t have over
grown beaks, and the background is a lot more open.
Oh and by the way team, the Bald Eagle is
not one of the largest eagles in the world. The White-tailed Sea-eagle is
larger as a general rule and the Steller’s Sea-eagle makes a Bald Eagle look
tiny!!!
Why don’t you ask experts to help you with
your commentaries, it would be far more sense.
Have you noticed how many adverts there are
for gambling on the TV, all this bingo rubbish, how to get people to lose their
hard earned cash, it’s a great shame in this age of hardship, still not to
worry there are about as many adverts for loan sharks on there as well so if
you lose all your cash gambling you can borrow more at an exorbitant rate of
interest. And then if you fall over a stone, or trip down some stairs, you can
use one of these lovely lawyers who tout for business, I have always thought
that the fact that you see the adverts of the back of lavatory doors is
extremely telling!!
Ah well, back to work!
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