Watch Chickadees and Titmice Make Epic Slow-Motion Landings: Backyard Birds Revealed

[Russell Laman voiceover] Today we’re looking at the incredible flight skills of birds landing at feeders using a super slow motion camera.

We’re wildlife filmmakers Tim and Russ Laman, and we usually travel the world filming, but in this series, we’re using our cameras to explore the lives of the birds that live right in our backyard in Massachusetts. Welcome to Backyard Birds Revealed.

[woman’s voice] Wild Birds Unlimited helps you bring the joy of bird feeding to your backyard. With more than 365 stores, our experts help you choose the right food and feeders for your neighborhood birds. Shop online or find your local store at wbu.com. [Tim Laman onscreen] So on this camera, I’m filming at regular speed. [Tim voiceover] So one second is one second just the way we see it with our eye. But on that high speed camera, Russell’s one second of footage is going to be turned into 40 seconds when we play it back. We’re not going to play the whole 40 seconds. We’re going to play a fraction of a second. So we’re going to be able to see what these birds are doing so they don’t just crash into the bird feeder.

We also want to compare different species and see if there’s any interesting differences in the way they make a landing.

Oh yeah. That was a really good one.

Yeah? Yeah.

I think he came in exactly from the right direction. Let’s check. Whoa. Oh, look at that. Yeah, you can totally see that turbulence on his back.

Yeah, I see that.

You see what I mean? The feathers on his back are, like, rippling with the…

with the turbulence.

You know, when the, chickadees coming in for a landing, we can’t even really see… It’s like a flurry. It’s like a little. It’s like a little whirr. Yeah, well whirr of wings, yeah.

Yeah, but in the slow motion camera, we can see that even when he enters the frame, he beats his wings like three or maybe even four times before he lands.

So that was a good titmouse.

Yeah, I got it.

So here a titmouse is coming and then flares out. Wow. Boom. And sticks the feet out. So they’re really flying backwards, right? They’re like turning.

Yeah.

Their body vertically to, like, brake. Right. You know, with their tail and their body.

I love how it sticks out its long legs to use like a shock absorber and cushion its landing.

[Russell onscreen] I think it’ll be really cool to get some shot to some of the bigger birds, like a Mourning Dove or something like that. They’re a bird that usually looks kind of calm and friendly, but I think in super slow motion, they might looks super epic and really, really cool.

Hey, look at this dove, Dad.

Wow.

That’s really cool.

Look at the Mourning Dove, it’s so much bigger than the chickadee and it lands really differently. Kind of vertically, like a helicopter.

I want him to land right here, on this little perch. Hopefully they’ll come in.

We’ll be able to frame a tight shot that this includes the top of this, and we’ll be able to see like the last sort of landing wingbeat.

All right, well now we’ve moved our cameras over here. To try and get, like, the head on shot. It’ll probobly be really cool to see, you know, from head on as they come in for the last part of the landing, you know, how they’re flaring out their wings and their tail and try to capture that.

Wait for it. Wait for it, oh, look at that.

Backlighting looks so cool.

The backlighting is so cool.

All right.

After seeing what these birds can do in slow motion, I feel like I can see some of these details even at regular speed. It makes it that much more fun to watch the birds at my feeders. And I hope it makes it more fun for you to watch yours as well.

Thanks for tuning into Backyard Birds Revealed. Be sure to check out our other episodes on the Cornell Lab YouTube channel, and the All About Birds website.

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