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There is much more to the pigeon than meets the eye (and more to their vision than we once thought).  This fascinating video by True Facts Educational delves into the bobbing heads question.  The answer is quite simple - they are only trying to keep their world still.  This video goes into much more detail than that, of course, but this is only the beginning.  It turns out that there are a lot of questions we could ask about pigeons, but are too distracted by our daily lives to go and seek the answer.  So, what other questions does this video ask?

First and foremost, something that we have seen countless times.  We all recognise the signs when pigeons are getting amorous.  There is the head bowing and the tail feather fanned out – and the female trying to get away at all costs.  The signals the male gives are very similar to those he displays when feeling aggressive, but they are part of an elaborate courtship dance.  You know he's got it right when the female allows a little beaking to go on (yes, you read that correctly – watch the video to see it in action!).   It isn’t some kind of pigeon French-kissing, though – it enables the giving of a gift.   That raises another question – why do their nests so often look like a hopeless mess, like they haven’t bothered to make much of an effort to give their eggs a place to call home?  There’s a good reason for that, too…

One thing that genuinely surprised me is the fact that most pigeons mate for life.  Their courtship rituals always look so random to me – but perhaps I wasn’t paying enough attention!  When I watch them (with some amusement) in the local park, it all looks a little random, but their behaviour is far more sophisticated than it first appears. Watch the video below and discover much more about the humble pigeon – it might surprise you just how complex the behaviour of this bird we all take for granted truly is. 

Japan is a crowded country but stull has many diverse wildlife and landscapes. Many of the animals have adapted and continue to thrive alongside humans.  This documentary is a very sweet and beautifully created piece of work and features narration by Michelle Dockery.  You will witness frogs and their amazingly complex nests, the tadpoles feeding off it before they make their way out into the world.  Then there are the macaques raiding the local farms for the fresh produce (well, everyone has to eat, don’t they?).  These and many other animals will thrill and engage you for 20 minutes. I particularly liked the underwater sequences - simply phenomenal.  It leaves me wondering how on earth it was done. Enjoy!

Badlands National Park, in southwest South Dakota, United States preserves 242,756 acres (98,240 ha) of sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles, and spires blended with the largest protected mixed grass prairie in the United States. Bizarre and beautiful formations jut out of the fractured prairie in various shades of pink, red and yellow. Bison and bighorn sheep are a few of the parks multiple inhabitants.

Sit back and take in this glorious landscape with its wildlife through this short film created by Matt Brass.  The music is The Temperature of the Air on the Bow of the Kaleetan" by Chris Zabriskie.

It was not so long ago that naturalists were predicting that the Water Vole would be extinct in the United Kingdom within a few years. Predation by the North American Mink, loss of habitat and pollution seemed to be the main culprits.

The much loved small mammal, immortalized in fiction as Ratty (left) in Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows, seemed destined for the history books.  It was given protected status as late as 2008 - a legislative moved considered by many to be too little too late.

Yet just a few years after their dire predictions it seems that the water vole is back from the brink, testimony to the help it has received from conservationists.

Thriving colonies of over two thousand now exist in several places in the UK. Less than ten years ago, surveys of the same places revealed only a scattering of water voles, less than twenty in each location.  If those numbers have made you raise an eyebrow you may not know just how fecund a water vole can be. Left to her own devices a female can produce up to thirty young in a season with up to eight baby voles per litter. So, what did the environmentalists do to aid such a dramatic come back for this semi-aquatic rodent?

Are you in need of a few moments of relaxation? Then look no further. Oostvaardersplassen in the Netherlands covers about 56 square kilometers and, surprisingly, did not exist until the polder was created in 1968.  Amazingly it is now internationally important as a waterfowl habitat.  Benfilm visited this amazing place in May of 2018 and this beautiful, peaceful and relaxing video footage is the result.  Go and get a cup of something to sip while you reflect on the beauty we still have in this world…

This is one of those videos that, when it ends, you sit there for a few seconds just willing there to be more…  Created by director and cinematographer Alan Nogues, Wildlife in Highspeed focuses in on the wildlife of New Caledonia, a French territory consisting of hundreds of islands in the South Pacific.  So many of these moments would be over in the blink of an eye: however, Nogues’ ability to capture them at 1000 frames per seconds ensures that we get to savor them.

The Galápagos Islands are home to some of the most unusual creatures on earth, explored here in this 3-minute ambient destination video from Galaxiid.  Your job?  Just sit back and take it all in! Discover a treasure trove of endemic species, natural wonders and unique wildlife. Darwin's studies of the plants and animals there played a pivotal role in the development of his theory of natural selection.

The number of caribou in British Columbia is shrinking and as this happens both the ecology and local human culture changes.

This fascinating short film shows us some of the issues they face as well as the attempts by wildlife biologists to help sustain this species, truly one of Canada’s iconographic animals. It was commissioned by the 14th North American Caribou Workshop hosted in Fort St John, British Columbia in September 2012.

Mention the name Komodo and most people would associate it with the home of the largest lizard on the planet.  Yet this fascinating and mysterious island has a reef, here captured by Dustin Adamson.  It is a place teeming with life and here the footage is shot wide so you can get a truly panoramic impression of this undersea universe.  Go grab your beverage of choice, sit back, relax and let the beauty roll over you. 

Or, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?! Sometimes you never know what to expect at mealtimes, especially if you and your sister are looking after five energetic cubs.  Yet one thing you might not expect, if you were a lioness trying to feed a hungry family, is to be joined by an even hungrier crocodile – who doesn’t look as if he wants to share either!

This remarkable footage was taken at the end of September 2012 by Oli Dreike. The 'Kapamba Pride' at Zungulila Bushcamp, South Luangwa, Zambia killed an impala right in front of Tent 2 at Zungulila Bushcamp, interrupting the guests' breakfast. The voracious lions - two females and five cubs (regular visitors to the plain in front of camp that season) - were so absorbed in their meal, that it took them a while to apprehend that they had an unwanted and unwelcome table guest.... the enormous crocodile that lives in the stream in front of encampment had smelt its chance and decided to try it's luck at grabbing a piece of the action. The video speaks for itself!

In June 2012 Cain Scrimgeour visited RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) Troup Head in Scotland, to produce a short promotional film for the RSPB. A week was spent filming on the high sea cliffs of the reserve, where he was privileged to be in the presence of the beautiful and prehistoric Northern Gannet, Morus bassanus. The close proximity allowed him to delve into the Gannets lives, witnessing the complexity of their behavioural traits.

Cain takes up the story: During the week the weather was by majority hot and sunny with flat seas, this proved to be challenging in terms of exposure whilst filming these large white birds, but it also meant that the majority of the Gannets kept to the cliff edges, never venturing above the cliff tops. Only two days did I experience wind which provided some interesting photograph and filming opportunities. The waves picked up, and began crashing into the base of the rocky cliffs, whilst the winds updrafts allowed the Gannets to gain height, congregating at the uppermost parts of the cliff face, gliding effortlessly above the horizon.

This is a rough cut of a proposed documentary by David Mrazek but you can see from this fifteen minutes or so that the finished product is going to be something really special. It tells the story of the demise of the great American species the Passenger Pigeon, the numbers of which went from the billion to none by the early twentieth century.

It details not only how the destruction of the species was speeded up by what amounted to industrialised harvest but warns that we are still doing the same thing to the planet – and depriving future generations of possibly countless species.

The documentary points out that at least our ancestors had the benefit of ignorance (with which I disagree a little it has to be said – that is letting them off the hook too easily!) yet that is something we most certainly do not have.

This documentary is already extremely well put together and I really look forward to seeing the complete version. The story of the Passenger Pigeon is tragic – if you have never heard of it you really should watch this eye opening film.

You may not have heard of the quoll.  However, do not suspect they are a creature of invention.  These small marsupials are native to Australia and Papua New Guineau and – as you can see – they are extremely appealing to the eye.  Above is an Eastern Quoll fawn. The tribe (that's a rank between family and genus) that the quoll belongs to also contains the much better known Tasmanian Devil.



One peculiar fact about the quoll is that they only develop a pouch (where their young will grown after they are born) once the breeding season is in progress.  The pouch is towards their tail area. They have six nipplies and can have several young (or joeys) at the same time. Above is another Eastern Quoll, found in Tasmania.

Quolls are quite happy living in forest or in open land and live mostly on the ground.  However, over the millennia they have had reason to take to the trees and are quite happy among the branches too.  They do not have prehensile tails which would enable them to grab hold of branches with their tails to aid climbing.  The above climber is a Spotted or Tiger Quoll, found in eastern Australia.

However, quolls do have ridges on the pads of their feet, a feature which is common among arboreal animals. Although their colour is usually the brown that you can see in most of the pictures here, they can morph black, such as the Eastern Quoll example above.

These little guys have very very strong teeth and so although they look cute and cuddly a nip from one of them would be very painful.  These teeth are used to rip apart their prey. This has included the cane toad, introduced in to Australia in 1935.  Unfortunately the cane toad is highly toxic and has threatened the number of quolls.

Altogether there are six species of quoll and their genus is called Dasyuru, which gives them one of their alternative names, the daysure.  There is now a capture program in process (see above) to help out the quoll in terms of the cane toad problem. 

The Northern Quoll (above) is the smallest of the six species and rarely grows longer than thirty centimeters in length.   A peculiar feature of the Northern is that after mating the males invariably die and the females are left alone to raise the young.  They live mostly on fruit and small vertebrates but despite their size and timid appearance they are happy to scavenge in campsites.