Backyard Birding...and Beyond! Channel Trailer Now Online

Video: Backyard Birding...and Beyond! Channel Trailer. Some of the Greatest Hits!

Backyard Birding...and Beyond! Channel Trailer. Some of the Greatest Hits!

I finally created a channel trailer for the companion YouTube channel for this blog - Backyard Birding...and Beyond! It's sort of a greatest hits sampler to give people an idea of what the channel is all about and hopefully entice them to watch and subscribe. It is made up of short clips from 23 different videos. If nothing else I hope it is an entertaining three minutes of nature enjoyment.

This is the text that accompanies the video on YouTube -

The home of wild Eastern Screech Owls...this is Backyard Birding ....and Beyond!  Sharing original HD videos of birds and Nature in general observed in our backyard and in our travels. Our goal is to capture the unique moments when creatures interact naturally or reveal something unusual. Sometimes funny and cute, beautiful, or surprising and shocking, but always real, wild, and original. New HD videos are uploaded each week and Eastern Screech Owls are live each spring. Also free bird-call ringtones!  A companion blog - Screech Owls...and Nature is at: http://screech-owls.blogspot.com . Thanks for visiting - Adventure is as near as the Backyard! If you like what you see please subscribe, comment and share to help support our work.

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Original  source videos from this channel used in this trailer video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTmQ1mnjAJc  Funniest and Cutest Baby Owls

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFJe6SMEHFA  Wild Transformer Owls

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wr70t9Gu5zA   Transformer Owl and Squirrel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHp9yhQzWG4 Owl Scratches and Itch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpG56m2C9zk Amazing Screech Owl Calls

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyw82AiDuWY Screech Owlet Leaves the Nest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYLYZ36uhNQ Screech Owl Outside the Nest Box

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8-TUzAV4A4 Painted Bunting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glGpBragTs8  Amazing Pileated Woodpecker Calls

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7bhQwjUSq0 Female Downy Woodpecker Calls

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZzfqmht2mc  Baby Hummingbird Heartbeat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN_iwxUAcbM Face-Off Dove Versus Woodpecker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXx0v7lMG40 Hummingbird Dominated by Butterfly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Znpy3whzTcc Possum and Raccoon Friends

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CA1c6J6mwYc  Flying Squirrel Ghost of the Forest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvf3jQZ1Wpk Hiccuping Squirrel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RXyYzjzZvs Golden Silk Orb Weaver

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMkhnE7uqbo Waterfalls of Letchworth State Park

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlROOffVUVg  Butterfly Feeding Frenzy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0ybGVYkQps Eagle and Crow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0e1NrNLY3A Magnificent Bull Elk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpHQ3LFqXC4 Free Nature Ringtones!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi88bEukUns Winking Baby Owl

Woodland Jumping Mouse In the Wild - First Time on Video!

Video: Amazing Woodland Jumping Mice

Woodland Jumping Mouse

Lucky break while staking out Flying Squirrels I apparently captured the only known video on the "Web" or at least in the Google World of a Woodland Jumping Mouse in the wild. Of course the individual mice are very small in this night-vision video captured using a Bushnell HD Trail Cam, but what one can see - are the amazing jumps and that of course, is what is the key attribute of this species. Able to jump well over several meters in a single bound, the Woodland Jumping Mouse is an amazing member of the rodent family, rarely, if ever, filmed at night in its natural environment.

In the video they can be seen making easy jumps of 5 to 6 feet. They do very little "walking". Nocturnal, this wild and crazy group of jumping mice live at nearly 4000 feet elevation in an Eastern Hemlock grove on the banks of a small stream in the Great Smoky Mountains - a choice habitat for them. There is leftover seed on the ground from daytime feeding of birds that they are after.  A Flying Squirrel is also in the mix - you will note how the jump of the squirrel is not even comparable. The tails of the Woodland Jumping Mice are much longer than their bodies and their rear feet are large. They are more often found in eastern Canada, but populations remain at the higher elevations of the southern Appalachians. They apparently relish the colder winters as they are hibernators and only active during the warmer months. Here are some links to more information:
http://www.dnr.sc.gov/cwcs/pdf/woodlandjumpingmousem.pdf
http://www.mnh.si.edu/mna/image_info.cfm?species_id=207

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Flying Squirrel - Little Ghost of the Forest

Video: Southern Flying Squirrel 

Southern Flying Squirrel 

Southern Flying Squirrel 

Southern Flying Squirrel 

I finally caught a Southern Flying Squirrel on camera and video! I noticed a squirrel at the feeder after dark and upon shining a flashlight on it made the happy discovery! Over the next few nights i set up cameras by LED lantern light and night-vision cameras to document them.  Flying Squirrels glide through the forest night like a little ghost in the trees. The woods behind the house are incredibly dense and this is the fourth species of squirrel I've documented living there - Red, Gray, Brown and Southern Flying. The Gray's are the largest.

This little squirrel is even smaller than a Red Squirrel with a very flat tail to aide its gliding and large eyes, big ears and extremely long whiskers to fit its nocturnal lifestyle. It would be difficult to capture this squirrel in flight as it tends to move through the forest at high levels in the trees and then quickly run down the trunk to get to the feeder, but I'll try in the future. This squirrel lives in a Hemlock and mixed hardwood forest at 4000 feet in the Great Smoky Mountains - the much rarer and larger Northern Flying Squirrel also lives in these mountains at a little higher elevation. I would love to film one of those. The squirrel feeder box would eventually be discovered by Eastern Screech and Barred Owls so you'll note the extreme caution this little squirrel uses when exposing itself in the open. It spends most of its time lying flat against the tree trunk.

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The Spiny Orb Weaver Spider - A Natural Work of Art!

Video: Spiny Orb Weaver Spider.

Spiny Orb Weaver Spider - A Work of Art!

I've seen these little spiders off and on over the years, but never one in such an accesible location for filming. This little Orb Weaver was in our backyard maybe 20 feet from where I found it's huge relative The Golden Web Orb Weaver https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RXyYzjzZvs earlier in the summer.
But this Orb Weaver spider is only about half an inch across. It is sometimes called a "crab spider", but crab isn't what comes to mind when I see this little jewel of a spider. I don't know if it's just me and the macro lens, but the top of the spider looks a lot like a porcelain Foo Dog or Bowser from Super Mario Brothers.It appears to me to have an eastern art look to it.

The purpose of this amazing colorful deception is to repel potential predators and avoid being eaten. Far from being scary to my eye it looks a bit like a happy face with rays of sunshine. But then I don't eat spiders! Nevertheless, it is a very attractive, beneficial and entertaining little spider. In the video  it eats a caught mosquito and also shows a serious aversion to vegetables, as lacking insects, I threw a small flower and piece of green leaf into its web to get it to move around - after which it quickly threw them out of the nest with an expression of obvious disdain! It seemed to be all business and fastidiously keeping a tidy web lest it miss out on a meal, it certainly had no intentions of humoring me. These spiders are small and their bite reportedly causes a very mild reaction and it is extremely unlikely that anyone would be bitten. If you see this colorful little spider let it be and enjoy!

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Blind Baby Screech Owl Undergoes Eye Surgery

Here is an interesting story out of Southfield, Michigan from Amy Akers of WLNS TV 6 Lansing - Jackson.
A baby Eastern Screech Owl that was born blind and unable to care for itself was living at the Howell Nature Center in Michigan and underwent cataract surgery by a veterinary ophthalmologist in the hopes of returning the creature to normal. It is probably unlikely that this owl could ever be returned to the wild, but hopefully I'll hear of an update on its progress and pass it on. What is fascinating about this story is how far veterinary medicine/science has evolved and the dedication of people and organizations to help injured animals. Check out the Howell Nature Center website!

Surgery completed - the little Screech Owl  is coming out of Anesthesia. 

Screech Owl before surgery

Doctor Gwen Sila performing eye survery on Screech Owl.   

Source of all photos : Baby Screech Owl Undergoes Eye Surgery 

See a Baby Hummingbird's Heartbeat

Video: See a Baby Hummingbirds Beating Heart!

Ruby Throated Hummingbird mother feeding baby allows us to see its beating heart.

You can not count as fast as this precious little Ruby-Throated Hummingbird fledgling's heart beats in 40 seconds of video. Watch the zoomed-in PIP of the birds heart area in full 1080 HD. Hummingbirds have the fastest heart rates of all birds. We rescued a prematurely fledged baby hummingbird that crashed and exhausted itself - more on that in later video blogs - but here it is re-united with its mother and in assuming the out of the nest feeding position so the mother can get food into its beak, the bird allows us to see its tiny heart beating incredibly fast under its pink breast flesh. The hummingbirds has one of the biggest hearts in proportion to its body in the animal world, but it is still smaller than a green pea!
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Butterfly Bush Casts Its Magic Spell on Butterflies

Video: Butterflies can't resist the "Butterfly Bush"

Butterflies can't resist the "Butterfly Bush"

Tiger Swallowtails, Pipevine Swallowtails and a few other butterfly species find this "Butterfly Bush" irresistible. Perhaps due to all the rain, we have a bumper crop of blossoms and the late summer butterflies that feed on them! The Tiger Swallowtail in the photo above is the State Butterfly of North Carolina!

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Cute Elk Calf Having Breakfast in the Great Smoky Mountains

Video: Elk Calf Enjoying Breakfast

Cute Elk Calf Enjoying Breakfast in the Great Smoky Mountains

We were fortunate to spend some quality time with a mother Elk and her three calves one morning earlier this week. I focused on one of three Elk calves enjoying breakfast. Remote roadside forage next to heavy forest cover is one of their favorite hangouts. Sequestration and the closure of the prime Elk area of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park has led to much less "people pressure" on the animal life, making for excellent viewing.

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Peak Hummingbird Season - Up Close and Loud

Video: Hummingbird In Evergreen

Hummingbird In Evergreen

Crank up the volume! Close up video and audio of a female Ruby Throated Hummingbird at an isolated feeder above evergreen trees. The sun was just right to bring out the iridescent green feathers. It is interesting to see how the hummingbirds interact with small insects at this scale. You will also hear some loud calls of nearby Cardinals.

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Butterfly Feeding Frenzy

Video: Butterfly Feeding Frenzy

Pipevine Swallowtail Butterfly Feeding Frenzy

Relaxing! Only a solitary Milk Thistle blossom within a large area of many plants emerged a few days ago and it was quickly found by a large number of hungry Pipevine Swallowtail Butterflies and bees leading to a rare and beautiful feeding frenzy. All thistle is generally considered an invasive weed, but Milk Thistle is not unattractive due to its large colorful blossoms and is a choice food for butterflies. The extract of the dried seeds is purported to be good for the liver.

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