Slow motion trained birds

[mouser]

There must be a ton of these videos on youtube; this one posted on laughingsquid and neatorama just caught my eye:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WurNq4q0K0

Trained birds in slow motion (owls and hawks i think).

[IainB]

Beautiful birds, not often seen performing their maneuvers in the wild in daytime, and well-nigh impossible to see at night.
Thanks for posting that. My son will love it too (we both like owls).

[MilesAhead]

Hmm, it could use that $6Million Man soundtrack. 

Just the other day there was an owl very anxious to buy something in the campus bookstore.  I tried to tell him it was Sunday and the store was closed.  But he kept banging his head into the glass window and flapping his wings.  Once he noticed the prices though he flew away in a hurry. 

[mouser]

At about 1:54 that one owl was like "oh your cell phone is more interesting than me, huh?" and taps the kid on the head with his wings 

[MilesAhead]

At about 1:54 that one owl was like "oh your cell phone is more interesting than me, huh?" and taps the kid on the head with his wings 

I am not into ornithology.  But it is amusing to watch some of the birds here.  I do not know the name of the breed and there are too many to search to find the image.  It is a small gray bird that looks like it is wearing a bow tie.  It is very pompous and I tell people they are Ambassadors reincarnated.

One of the amusing behaviors is when extremely hungry they will look you right in the eye and smack their beak on the ground.  It is as clear a demand for food as speaking..  There is one who is sort of the Boss of the Block.  He is always doing the hopping charge motion to shoo the other pigeons from his territory.  But the sparrows outsmart him.  The pigeon tries to shoo the sparrow away from his morsel.  The sparrow hops around in a circle and the pigeon follows threatening with his beak.  When the tail end of the pigeon is pointed towards the food the sparrow completes the circle at a higher rate of speed, snaps up the treat, and flies away. 

I never realized just how strobe like the motion of the sparrow is.  The movement starts and stops so suddenly that I swear if I had a strobe flashing it would appear motionless.  There must be some predator thwarted by this motion but I do not know what it would be.

[Deozaan]

It's funny to see what looks like the slow reaction of the others who are trying to film the birds. Maybe it's just the camera angle, but to me it looks like most of the people trying to take video/photos are not tracking the birds fast enough as they fly.

[MilesAhead]

It's funny to see what looks like the slow reaction of the others who are trying to film the birds. Maybe it's just the camera angle, but to me it looks like most of the people trying to take video/photos are not tracking the birds fast enough as they fly.

Anytime I see slo-mo like that I involuntarily look for David Carradine.