They told me I only had an hour but they haven-t come to stop me yet, so i-m going for another post.
It-s been a real joy using video rather than still photos. If still photography can be compared to precision rifle shooting, video is like using a machine gun: you just fire it off and hope for the best.
I saw what looked like a Wren jump into a hole in a tree, deep in the forest yesterday. Just like the European Wren, the Venezuelan wrens are very shy and difficult to photograph (though Alan R-s got some cracking shots on his blog) so this was a great opportunity: what goes in must come out, so I set up the camcorder on the tripod and waited. When it finally appeared, it was gone in less than a second- There.s no way I could have taken a decent shot in time, but with the vid, I could go back at my leisure and pick the key moment. Marvellous.
Whereas there-s only one species in Britian, there are more than 20 wren and wren-like species in Venezuela, and most look very similar. Normally I.d have no chance at IDing it, but by slowing the vid down and extracting the best stills it becomes easy. The buffy colour and very clear eye stripe means it.s a Mountain Wren, Troglodytes solstitialis solitarius
ps. It took a full 45 mins to upload this one, so I.d better stop now, and not push my luck...
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