Yes and did you notice that the sequence on The Life of Birds where the
Crowned Eagle captures a
onkey then returns to its nest, that in what
purports to be only about 5-10 seconds later there is only the rear half of
the monkey left. Likewise, the Peregrine Falcon that caught a pigeon over
the British coast then returns to its nest, the pigeon appears to be already
plucked and headless. Even so, it was rather impressive. If it fascinates
people around the world in TV land and increases concern for such things
then it is worthwhile. Engineering and editing scenes for effect is not
limited to wildlife films. We have come a long way since the Walt Disney
engineered myth of the lemmings committing suicide by jumping off a cliff
and the contrived Wild Kingdom films of Marlin Perkins of the early 1970s.
As for the Lyrebird, I suggest the fascinating aspects are not so much how
many species of bird or other sounds it mimics but the way it uses those
assumed sounds as additives or punctuation in its own vocabulary of species
specific messages and the geographic variations in both those aspects of its
vocal repertoire. Our Lyrebird is impressive but after all, there are many
birds that use vocal imitation. It is only the Regent Honeyeater uses it as
true mimicry (analogous to the way insects use mimicry) for an advantageous
purpose.
-----Original Message-----
From: John Leonard <>
To: <>
Date: Sunday, 3 January 1999 10:40
Subject: David Attenborough type TV shows
>I just thought I'd follow up the discussion of the Lyrebird song sequence
in
>DA's Life of Birds (which screens tonight, I think), with some further
>thoughts on wildlife films.
>
>I think I'm probably very intolerant of the gimicks of TV because for most
>of my adult life (about 18 years), I've hardly ever watched TV. But now we
>have a TV and video to get the children off our backs for a few minutes
each
>day and they have started to like watching David Attenborough type
programs.
>I think that these are quite good in the main, but watching one on eagles
>last night I was struck by how tacky the raptor-pursuit sequence is. I'm
>describign the familar here, but this sequence involves picture of fierce
>looking raptor, cut to picture of terrified looking animal, cut back to
>raptor swooshing along, cut back to terrified animal running away..... (and
>obviously these are just two completely different sequences spliced
together
>and the sign of this is that the chase is always unsuccessful, the raptor
>lands in a cloud of dust, cut to animal dashing into bush). The only time
we
>see a raptor catching something it is in a very distant shot, as with the
>Philippines Monkey Eagle sequence in last night's show.
>
>I might be carping here, but why do TV shows have to try and show you what
>hardly anyone ever sees? Why couldn't it restrict itself to what people
>really see of eagles, namely either perched in trees, or soaring, or just
>flying by (after all most raptors only need to kill once or twice a day,
and
>the chances of seeign this are quite minimal). The reason why I think this
>is an important point is that it might well be that such shows encourage
>people to get up and go out and visit nature reserves &c, and the dnager is
>that if they don't see really spectacular things on their first visit they
>may get disillusioned and think that wildlife antics are just another TV
>gimmick.
>
>John (the Luddites had a few good points) Leonard
>
>
>
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