Six (flying) Things

Butterfly | Damselfly | Bee | Gannet | Geese | Swifts

There’s a difficulty inherent in the filming of flying things: they move.

STAY STILL, DAMMIT.

But then of course they wouldn’t be flying any more. Hovering, perhaps – and that’s a different story.

My research for Taking Flight took many forms. There was a lot of reading, watching, asking, looking, swearing, window-staring, coffee-making, up-and-down pacing, and good old-fashioned writerly thinking.

There was even, occasionally, a bit of writing.

In between all that, I found myself pointing my phone at a variety of things, desperately trying to hold on to their flight paths in the hope that the resulting footage would yield something of interest or use. Most often the phone-pointing resulted in blurry expanses of foliage, sky or water. But just occasionally I managed to lock in to a flying animal.

Here are six of them.

Thing 1 – Butterfly

Good old slo-mo. Thanks to slo-mo, you can see the insect’s individual wingbeats as it takes to the air in search of further nectar sources (note also the dinky curl of the proboscis).

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Thing 2 – Damselfly

Slo-mo again – it’s a godsend if you’re trying to film insects. The damselfly (a Banded Demoiselle) has helpful black spots on its wings – useful not just for impressing females but for allowing middle-aged amateur naturalists track them in flight.

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Thing 3 – Bee

I lik this footage, and not just because it reminds me that spring will come again – it will, it will – but because of the apparent magic trick the bee does with its wings, seemingly levitating on them and hanging unaided in the air. I realise this is to do with frame rates and so forth, but it also means the sun – remember the sun? THAT WAS A NICE TIME – glints ever so attractively off them. Too heavy to fly? You’re having a laugh. (I do a whole bit about this myth in Taking Flight, for which – if you hadn’t already realised – this whole post is a thinly-disguised marketing ploy).

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Thing 4 – Gannet

Check out the way the first bird reverses into the wind four seconds in.

Check out the angle of the wings.

Check out how they are absolute masters of the whole blowy situation, seemingly bending it to their will.

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Thing 5 – Geese

This is the merest glimpse of one of the great spectacles, and only hints at its wonder. Thousands of Pink-Footed Geese assembling over the marsh at Cley in Norfolk. A clamouring din of raucous honking, filling the sky. Impossible to ignore and impossible to stop watching.

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Thing 6 – Swifts

You don’t want to know how many clips litter my hard drive, the birds – if they’re in shot at all – a mere blur. So many May mornings have been disrupted by my efforts to film swifts as they swing by my office window it’s a wonder I ever get anything done at all.

These five seconds are my go-to mood-lifter-upper. I hope they work for you too.

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