Lang ElliottThe Music of Nature proudly presents "American Woodcock," a video portrait of an American Woodcock giving it's nasal "peent" calls at dusk. Notice the subtle throat sound that immediately precedes each peent. At the end, he takes flight and you can hear the high-pitched twittering of his wings, a sound made by modified wing feathers.
American WoodcockLang Elliott2011-08-16 | The Music of Nature proudly presents "American Woodcock," a video portrait of an American Woodcock giving it's nasal "peent" calls at dusk. Notice the subtle throat sound that immediately precedes each peent. At the end, he takes flight and you can hear the high-pitched twittering of his wings, a sound made by modified wing feathers.
Credits: Video by yours truly (Lang Elliott) with audio recorded simultaneously by my assistant, Beth BannisterCoyote MoonLang Elliott2021-01-22 | Coyotes howling and yipping under a full moon. Please wear headphones for 3D audio.American Woodcock Funk DanceLang Elliott2020-09-02 | This is my very first dance video, inspired by the bizarre yet amazing American Woodcock. I hope you like it, and if you do, please share with your friends!
A little background ... last April I went out to the mucky field behind our house with a bluetooth speaker and my iPhone, mounted on a tripod. I played the music and danced freeform, even though my muck boots kept getting bogged down in the moist turf. Every time I tried to spin (something I'm inherently good at), my boots would catch in the mud and I'd almost fall over. In spite of that, I'm rather happy with the result. Not bad, I suppose, for a 72-year old guy who makes his living recording the sounds of nature.
Credits:
Woodcock Video by Keith Ramos, US Fish & Wildlife Service, public domain
Created after watching "Funky American Woodcock", a Youtube Video by the Center for Biological Diversity. youtube.com/watch?v=ne6nj9AgY7M
Produced by Lang Elliott, musicofnature.comThe Watry Mirror — A Celebration of Water StridersLang Elliott2019-12-28 | A video celebrating water striders and their way of being, as I encountered them along a forest brook in midsummer (note that the sound track is binaural, so please wear headphones for 3D immersion). Includes a poem by yours truly, featured at the beginning and the end:
on this placid summer morn meandering up a forest stream i search for magic newly-born … sprinklings of fair nature’s dream
and soon i find a sweet delight drifting, darting, left and right in pools beneath the riffled light …
water striders, skimming near gliding on the wat’ry mirror casting shadows, sliding smooth … entranced, i watch their every moveMusic of Nature TrailerLang Elliott2019-02-06 | Welcome Friends! My name is Lang Elliott and I am a nature cinematographer and sound recordist. Join me as I celebrate the wonder and beauty of the natural world, especially nature near at hand.
For more information about me and my work, please visit my website: musicofnature.comThe Snow TrekkerLang Elliott2019-02-06 | Featuring a Jefferson Salamander crossing a snow patch during its early March migration to its breeding pond. Jefferson Salamanders are members of the mole salamander group and spend most of their year in the forest under logs or in underground burrows. In late winter or early spring, usually during rainy periods, they emerge at night and make their way to ponds or swampy areas where they breed. Sometimes they even emerge when there is still snow on the ground. On a moist night in early March, I found several doing just that. My best footage is featured in this video, set to the Bach-Ganoud version of Ave Maria, played on harp by Cyril Baranov (from Pond5.com).A Bullfrogs Advice ...Lang Elliott2019-01-06 | This is a promotional video for Lang Elliott's "Pure Nature 3D Audio," a FREE application for Apple mobile devices. Learn more here: musicofnature.com/app
NOTE: "Water Speaking Water" is dedicated to John Daido Loori, Zen master and former Abbot of the Zen Mountain Monastery in Mt. Tremper, New York ( http://www.mro.org/zmm ). Some years ago, he produced a provocative video by the same name, which you can also find on YouTube.Song SparrowLang Elliott2010-09-17 | The Music of Nature proudly presents "Song Sparrow," a video portrait featuring several singing Song Sparrows, gathered in the countryside around Ithaca, New York. Song Sparrows are winter residents here and their bright carols are often heard on cold, clear mornings in late winter. Males continue singing well into the summer months.
This footage was gathered in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New in early June of 2010. The habitat was a boggy area dominated by Black Spruce and Tamarack.
This species is sometimes called "The Preacherbird" because the male repeats his sermon (song) over and over from daybreak until dusk. One researcher actually followed a male for a whole day and counted a whopping 22,197 songs—geeze, you'd think he'd get a sore throat!
This difficult exposure situation, with patchy sunlight and a bird composed of blacks and whites, shows how well my Canon 7D handles high contrast. Even in clips where portions of the bird are in full shade and other portions lit by sun, the results look really good (at least to me). I really do love this fabulous new technology!
The clips were captured in my front yard where I attract a great many birds to my feeders and a water source. The Mourning Dove perched on a dead limb and seemed unconcerned that I was standing nearby, wielding all my video equipment.
The strident, high-pitched, lively song of the male is usually made up of a series of doubled phrases: "sweet, sweet, chew, chew, see-it, see-it".
The Indigo Bunting gets its name from it's beautiful indigo blue color. Although quite common in shrubby clearings over much of the East, this species is not well known to the general public and is often confused with the Eastern Bluebird (there are only a handful of North American birds that are primarily blue in coloration).