This is phenomenal footage, showing what an eagle sees as it flies courtesy a very small and light camera attached to the bird.
Wow. I have to find a copy of that whole show. That’s really amazing footage!
Tip o’ the flight feathers to Fark.
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About Bad Astronomy
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He's written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic and fights the abuse of science, but his true love is praising the wonders of real science.
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January 16th, 2010 at 12:50 pm
It was a good series, not just the golden eagle but other creatures as well.
January 16th, 2010 at 1:05 pm
Wow. Just… wow. Thanks, Phil.
January 16th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Anyone know if we in the US can watch this series online?
January 16th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Wow, I’d love to see the peregrin falcon clip. Just from the few seconds they show you can tell that it was going pretty fast.
January 16th, 2010 at 1:21 pm
Nice, pity the editor suffers from ADD.
January 16th, 2010 at 1:24 pm
How do they get the camera off the bird afterward?
January 16th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
Very nice! Thanks Phil!
January 16th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
The series was made in 2004.
See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3479595.stm
January 16th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
Some of this has been on PBS, if I’m not mistaken, I think the program was called “raptor force”. At least the peregrine falcon was shown there.
January 16th, 2010 at 2:01 pm
That is truly impressive! However, this is one example where editing is a bad thing. It would’ve been nice to just have one nice long shot uninterrupted.
January 16th, 2010 at 2:26 pm
That ground hugging one reminds me of ‘evil cam’ from various movies.
January 16th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
That’s an onbird camera!
January 16th, 2010 at 3:06 pm
It’s from a series shown in 2004, called ‘Animal Camera’ as far as I can tell. There doesn’t seem to be a torrent for it, that I can find, and too long ago to be available on iPlayer.
January 16th, 2010 at 3:17 pm
I thought about the editing like Steve #9 above, but I was wondering if they were using short segments where the video is more smooth and less jerky. Next they need a bird steady-cam. (But it is fascinating to see how the birds make flight adjustments.)
January 16th, 2010 at 4:11 pm
That close to that beak I’d be wearing my safety glasses.
January 16th, 2010 at 4:29 pm
I saw this program on tv a little while ago.. awesome footage! Glad to see it again.
January 16th, 2010 at 4:43 pm
WOW! Beautiful birds and stunning camera work, their video is much better than mine.
January 16th, 2010 at 4:53 pm
The peregrine and goshawk segment is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-_RHRAzUHM&feature=SeriesPlayList&p=E49D1D846F767A07
January 16th, 2010 at 5:38 pm
I too was bothered by the editing. In fact, I was surprised just how much it bothered me!
January 16th, 2010 at 6:11 pm
Cool! I wonder if anyone has thought of bugging a wolf in Yellow Stone? That could provide some really interesting insight into the behavior of the pack.
GAry 7
January 16th, 2010 at 7:17 pm
Wow, that’s so cool. I’ve always wanted to be a bird for the flight, haha. Although it was awesome, I agree with Steve that there should’ve been a long uninterrupted shot.
I love evolution.
January 16th, 2010 at 8:02 pm
Amazing, but I’ve got to agree about the editing. I’d love to see the raw video of that front camera through the entire flight. Depending on the quality of the footage, perhaps you could project it on an IMAX type screen and maybe blow some wind at people to enhance the realism…. Sorry, was just having a Disney World Soarin’ flashback.
January 16th, 2010 at 11:44 pm
[...] Via Bad Astronomy. [...]
January 17th, 2010 at 12:07 am
It seems like those cameras can steer, either that or they combined footage from multiple flights changing the camera aim between them. Sometimes we were looking over its head, sometimes at its head from the left, sometimes out along the wing and once, very briefly, over the tail. Of all the viewpoints, this last one intrigued me the most, followed closely by the wing shot. I wanted to see how it moved its tail and wingtip feathers to perform the different maneuvers. I’ve seen lots of video from RC gliders like this and comparing them would be fascinating.
- Jack
January 17th, 2010 at 2:06 am
Awesome pictures!
@Jack: My impression was that they had multiple cameras “on board”.
January 17th, 2010 at 3:25 am
Too bad they didn’t bring the cams closer together and aim at a stereoscopic view. Still great idea and great footage.
January 17th, 2010 at 5:56 am
Well, it’s not exactly what the eagle sees, because the eagle’s eyesight is so much better than ours. But it’s beautiful.
January 17th, 2010 at 8:57 am
Wow! Thanks for posting this Phil.
January 17th, 2010 at 2:40 pm
@ #15: that was my thought too. I’d heard that even highly-trained raptor birds have this regrettable tendency to go for the eyes if held too close. Oh well, I understand functional optical replacements are coming along nicely…
January 17th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
ILM would have had a field day with this had the mini-tech existed around 1982…
January 17th, 2010 at 4:46 pm
Reminds me of the time I tried to teach my wife how to drive…
January 17th, 2010 at 9:34 pm
@ 27. Robin D. Nelson Says:
Well, it’s not exactly what the eagle sees, because the eagle’s eyesight is so much better than ours. But it’s beautiful.
You beat me to it. That’s what I was going to say. That & the Oliver Twist line : “Please sir, can I have some more!”
Yes, I too wish the narrator /editor there would just shut up and show us the bird-cam footage. That was just a very small taste of something very cool.
@ 18. featheredfrog Says:
The peregrine and goshawk segment is here: …
Thanks!
Sadly, while good that still seems kinda short. I would *love* a lot more just from the bird-cam.
Talk about having a bird’s eye view!
@ 22. TechyDad Says:
Amazing, but I’ve got to agree about the editing. I’d love to see the raw video of that front camera through the entire flight. Depending on the quality of the footage, perhaps you could project it on an IMAX type screen and maybe blow some wind at people to enhance the realism…. Sorry, was just having a Disney World Soarin’ flashback.
Don’t be sorry. That’s a durned good idea & I’d love to see that too.
January 17th, 2010 at 9:52 pm
@ 6. Romeo Vitelli Says:
How do they get the camera off the bird afterward?
They pluck it?
Cool footage though. If there’s anything to the idea of reincarnation (I know, there’s probably not but still..) coming back as a bird of prey does have a certain strong appeal to it.
January 17th, 2010 at 10:22 pm
@alfaniner, I was just thinking that goshawk sequence looked a lot like the speeder-bike chase.
Spy on the Wild is another great series to watch. They were stuck with larger cameras but camouflaged them to not weird out the critters too much. And by critter I mean elephant, tiger, pride of lions, etc. Nothing cuter than watching a lion cub nom on bouldercam.
January 18th, 2010 at 2:08 am
I did find a torrent for BBC’s Animal Camera 2. The tracker is working, but nobody is seeding it. Very few peers looking.
January 18th, 2010 at 5:01 am
I’m sure the cameras must feel like a backpack full of bricks to the bird. They completely destroy the aerodynamic shape of its body. I bet getting used to them took some time.
January 18th, 2010 at 7:50 am
Go to the Google and type in “you tube golden eagle wolf hunting”. Then do it but change out “wolf” with “reindeer”.
OK so yeah, you can friggin train one of those to hunt a wolf on the Mongolian Steppe or head up north of the Arctic circle and have it take down a Caribou. Absolutely amazing.
January 18th, 2010 at 8:32 am
Jeff Corwin met up with these guys for one of his segments in the 1st season of Corwins Quest on Animal Planet (one of my 6yr old’s favorite shows) – he even used that same Golden Eagle (Tilly). That show is worth watching as well.
http://animal.discovery.com/fansites/jeffcorwin/episode/episode04_09/sight.html
January 18th, 2010 at 3:23 pm
[...] (Hat tip: Bad Astronomy) [...]
January 20th, 2010 at 8:18 am
[...] tip: Bad Astronomy) Posted By: Sarah Zielinski — Wildlife | Link | Comments (0) Share/Save | [...]