Introducing Michael Male and Judy Fieth's Birdfilms

BNA Online is thrilled to announce the release of nearly 200 new video clips, courtesy of Birdfilms.com.  The first set, is focused on eastern and western warblers on their breeding grounds; the second focuses on sparrows and their behavior and breeding biology. These are the first of several installments from the talented folks at Birdfilms: Michael Male and Judy Feith.   

A husband and wife filmmaker team, Michael and Judy have been filming birds for over 30 years and have built up one of the premier wildlife video collections on the continent. Their intimate portraits of North American birds provide panoramic looks at the natural habitats supporting these animals, plus crystal clear recordings of songs and calls, as well as detailed key behaviors like nesting and feeding. From their website:

We've been making movies for National Geographic, PBS, BirdSight, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service. We've also contributed to several of the great series that David Attenborough and the BBC Natural History Unit have produced -   "Planet Earth,"  "The Life of Birds,"   "The Life of Mammals,"  "Blue Planet,"  and   "Journey of Life."  In 2007, we worked with some charming reptiles and amphibians for "Life in Cold Blood."  2008 took us to Delaware Bay to film shorebirds and horseshoe crabs for the upcoming BBC series "Life." 

DVDs released by Birdfilms include Watching Warblers (2 volumes, Eastern and Western), Watching Waders, Watching Sparrows, and A Celebration of Birds (a portrait of the famed bird artist and writer of field guides, Roger Tory Peterson, filmed in 1991 for PBS). All are available for purchase from the Birdfilms website.

A recent and exciting new project that Male and Fieth have developed is the Little Nature Show. More informal and relaxes than their full-length features, the page is updated frequently with new episodes. Of their new venture, they write:

Our plan with Little Nature Show is to have fun messing around in mud, water, snow, woodlands, marshes and other natural places, and to encourage others to go outside and do the same. Sometimes we'll stay close to home to reconsider the nature that lives right next to us.  We're serious about "little" nature stories,  but if something big comes along, we'll accommodate it.  Meanwhile, we'll look closely at the small...

The possibilities are endless and exciting. Our format will be informal and somewhat unstructured, with lots of digressions from the small subject at hand to the big world of science that helps us understand ourselves and our relationship to the natural world.  So, as in the first episodes, we can jump from some backyard birds in the snow - to global warming - and back.  

We're a little show, and though we'll evolve, we'll stay little. Input from teachers, scientists, and naturalists of all kinds and of every age will help with the evolution.

View all five episodes here.

Stay tuned for more videos from Birdfilms. BNA expects to focus on sparrows in the next release.