If you enjoy this video, please follow me on Vimeo at vimeo.com/h2otara Vimeo is my main channel and it's ad-free. I post these videos to share nature with others who care about it, and I keep receiving copyright claims on my YT videos on music that I've paid to license. It's frustrating to shoot the video, edit it, pay to license the music and then have other people try to make money on it. I may take down this channel and just post to Vimeo if the copyright claims continue.
This pair of Black-bellied Whistling Ducks arrived in our pond in early May. Since then I have watched and photographed and videoed a plethora of behaviors, but none like what I witnessed on the morning of August 10th. Temperatures in the small box in the sun must have been almost fatal on many days that the outside temperature was in the high 90’s. During the last couple of days, when instead of alternating incubation they both stayed in the box as their eggs hatched, I watched them both panting and wondered if they would be able to stick it out.
For the week and a half before the big day I went out before sunrise every morning, staying until at least 10am in case it was “the day,” and as the jumping grew imminent, I would stay until noon with two complete digiscoping systems so that I could have one camera on the box and one on the “landing zone.” The one thing I noticed over and over is how in sync and in tune they are, but what I witnessed this morning gave new meaning to the word “teamwork.”
Digiscoped using GH4’s mounted on Swarovski STX85 and STX95 scopes using Digidapters, Manfrotto 502 heads and a set of RRS TVC-33 legs with leveling base for the system shooting the dynamic video.