Raptors~ Fun Footage Friday 16

There is a lot I could say about this Friday's video.  Birds of prey/Raptors (ealges, hawks, owls, etc) are by far my favorites in the bird world.  They're the tigers and leopards of the sky.  They're some of the most incredible predators in the world!

With this footage a few animals gave me a chance to get up close and personal without flying off.  I think they're less likely to fly off on windy days so they don't have to fight the wind.  On the other hand they're a little more difficult to find cause they're not moving but just hanging out in shelter somewhere.  The ospreys are fairly active in certain areas so that wasn't much of a problem to find them.

The last few shots of a juvenile red tail hawk are not necessarily of a wild animal but it kind of is.  Right now it is in captivity but will be released by Summer time.  It's a hunting hawk that a friend of mine is using for falconry.  After the hunting season it will be released.  This hawk is so much fun to film hunting.  In the falconry situation I'm able to get shots of the bird that I would never be able to get in the wild.

All in all raptors are my favorite and I'm glad I live in a place that has a pretty good variety.

I hope y'all enjoy!

Primitive Archery Innovation

Working with bows and arrows has been a slower process than I would like.  While I have gained knowledge and experience pretty quick it could go faster.  The problem comes in when I want to find the absolute easiest way to do things.  With building bows there's a lot of grunt work that I must do and I accept that but when it comes to arrows there are more shortcuts that can be made.

The fletching is the part of the arrow that is made of feathers and stabilizes the arrow in flight.  I use a two fletch style which uses less feathers and takes less time.  At first I tried the eastern two fletch style, which is a native American style that was commonly used but I kept having a really hard time with getting it perfect and there was a fair bit of feather preparation before I attached the arrow.  Below is an example of that style:

  

 Finally I allowed this style to evolve with an idea I had.  I thought I could just split the shaft, which is hollow cane, and insert the feathers into the middle with just the feathery part of the feathers sticking out and the vane of the feather on the inside of the shaft.  I tried and I liked it a lot!  It was easy and quick.  I just stuck two identical feathers in the shaft facing away from each other.  It looked something like this:

I shot it and it flew straight and I liked it.  It was durable, strong and fletching never shifted.  This was great but I was missing one key element to a good arrow.  When shot, the arrow didn't spin.  Like a quarterback, an archer wants a good spiral on his/her projectile.  The evolution was not done.  I made a few arrows like this and shot them.  Finally I cut the two feathers in half down the length of the vane and only put half a feather on each side.  This way the two identical feathers weren't cancelling out each others tendency to force air over one side of the feather.  Now the two sides were working together to spin the arrow in flight.  I ended up with something like this:

You'll notice that the left side of the feather curves up and the right side curves down.  These curves force more air to one side of the feather than the other.  With the curves arranged facing in opposite directions they will be forced in opposite directions causing the entire arrow to spin.  I'd use a term like centripetal force but I'm about sick of that kind of talk for the day. 

So this is the latest development in my journey to make easy fletchings.  I am not the first person to come up with these methods but I didn't find that out until after I had done it.  If you make arrows with cane you should give it a shot and see how you like it.  Of course wrap on either side of the fletchings with sinew (especially the nock). 

A Day in the Woods with Primitive Tim

This will the be the title of one of my videos I'm making for Brian.  Last Saturday I filmed this episode and it was pretty cool!  We saw some stuff that was unexpected and it was a really nice day. 

The route for this day was determined by a rumor about a grove of guava trees.  So we headed out in search of these guava trees and filmed along the way.  We finally got way out there and found a large patch of guavas.  It looked like the pigs had been through there and I'm sure when the fruit is dropping they'll be in there pretty thick.

We saw a lot of cool things.  Some of the more notable things were a lot of birds, a pig, a deer, three bobcats, a few different types of frogs, an awesome sunrise and sunset, and a lot of wildflowers.  All in all is was a very interesting day.

It was made more interesting by our lack of water so me and my friend were struggling on the way back.  We made it fine though and it was good to see where our limits were.  Here are a few shots from the day.

Squirrel Treefrog

Guava Grove

Aquatic Reptiles~ Fun Footage Friday 15

When I film I always prefer to film in the animals' elements.  If the animal is aquatic I'm getting in that water and if it's arboreal you can be sure I'll be up that tree in no time.


In this video there are two locations represented.  They are Cherokee Sink and Silver River.  These are both beautiful bodies of water.  While the scenery is cool it's the creatures beneath the surface that really intrigue me.  Some animals tend to have a bad reputation like alligators, snapping turtles, and snakes.  When encountered on land they can be very defensive creatures with their hissing and snapping.  However beneath the surface you get to know a different animal.  Underwater is where these animals are content and comfortable.  They tend to be much more calm and apt to run away if they feel threatened rather than lash out as they might on land.

I hope y'all enjoy this week's Fun Footage Friday!

Resources

One of the biggest resources in my quest to learn primitive skills has been the primitive archer forum.  Not only has this forum helped me with understanding different concepts but they've also helped me acquire materials that I couldn't otherwise get.  I was able to trade arrow shafts that I collected for sinew, stone, and bow making tools.  The stone and sinew I use in making arrows.

There are some of the most knowledgeable people on the subject on this forum and they're willing to answer any questions.   What's even better than that, is I can post some of my work there and they will critique it and give me advice specific to the bow or arrow that I've posted. I even made a Facebook friend that lives here in Florida that is very helpful with answering questions of all kinds.

I've gotten immensely better at making bows and arrows and I would have never progressed so fast without them.  I still have a long journey ahead of me as I get better and better at these primitive arts.

My First Ghost Hunt

Every so often I like to get on google earth and look around for new areas that look like they might be fun to explore.  There was a small road that cut through some dense forest that caught my eye.  Its name was Volco road.  I wasn't even sure if it was open to public access so I googled the name of the road.  The first result was that of some kind of ghost website.  That sparked my interest so I checked it out.  Apparently the place is haunted.

I've never had any experiences with ghosts or super natural things like that.  I never thought it was impossible for there to be spirits roaming the earth and "haunting" certain areas.  There are just loads of obviously false reports and poor data.  We don't have any solid proof so I never bothered with it wondering about these things.

We turned onto Volco road at about 11 PM.  Midnight is supposed to be prime time for supernatural activity but we're getting old so we weren't going to stay that late.  Videoing as we slowly drove down the dirt road the preconceived ideas of witches and satan worshipers' souls wandering the woods really started to get me nervous.  Ahead we saw a sign indicating a bridge.  We slowed down as we approached it and my friend's car made a weird sound.  Apparently that was normal.  It still startled me.  We stopped on the bridge, shut the car off, and turned the headlights off and waited.  There was the normal sounds of crickets and frogs calling.  With nothing out of the ordinary occurring we ventured out of the car, looking over the sides of the small bridge.  Still nothing.

It basically went like this the whole night.  We didn't come across anything weird or supernatural.  We just found a nasty animal carcass that someone had dumped... or sacrificed!  After exploring the rest of the road we left.  Maybe next time I'll have to light a fire on the bridge at midnight with a caged black cat on friday the thirteenth on a full moon.

I guess my initial beliefs haven't changed much after this experience.

Bad Days

Saturday I was out filming for almost 10 hours.  For that kind of time I didn't feel like I had gotten the kind of footage I should have.  I had two target species for the day and didn't find either.  On top of missing my targets I got about ten minutes of sunshine and it drizzled off and on.  I can't film while it's drizzling. 

Even though it was a bad day I still learned from the experience and that's what is important.  I made a few mistakes of my own and now I know exactly how to avoid them.  For example, never go to an area that is frequented by air boaters as your sound will be useless and especially don't go to those places on a Saturday.  Overcast days generally have less animal activity and getting up at 6 was kind of useless.  These experiences make me better though and I'm learning quick.  I've noticed a definite increase in my experience and skill at getting good shots.  I think I'm learning so quickly because I'm making a lot of mistakes very rapidly.  Soon I'll have most of them out of my system.

Here's a shot from the ten minutes of sunshine I got from Saturday.

Free-Diving~ Fun Footage Friday 14

Free diving is something I started doing a couple years ago after visiting one of Florida's most incredible natural springs.  Blue Springs was like something you would only ever see in some kind of adventure film.  The mouth of the spring is pretty big and from the surface there seems to be no bottom.  It's like the underwater bottomless pit.  To be honest, the first time I saw it I was a little creeped out.  However, things that make me nervous tend to hold a high level of intrigue as well.  The next time I went to blue springs I was prepared with a dive mask and I swam down to the mouth of the spring and looked in.  All I could see was darkness still. I took several more trips that summer and each dive I would stay under longer and go deeper.  The next summer I did the same thing.  At about sixty feet down the pit turns off into underwater caves.  Now I am able to go down and peer into the blackness of these caves.

After these first experiences with free diving at the spring I started researching and found out that free diving is a sport with a lot of folks around the world free diving.  I researched the dangers and how to avoid them and started training myself with holding my breath.  I can hold my breath a lot longer now than I could before but my dives aren't getting proportionally longer.

What I found is that free diving isn't all about how long you can hold your breath but it's about mental strength.  Long dives require a sound and focused mind.  When you get down real deep you may feel like panicking but that can kill you so I just stay calm and work my way up to the surface.  I wish I could take my desire to breath and focus that same level of desire toward other things as well.

Free diving is a dangerous, exhilarating, relaxing sport that should be done very carefully.  As I always tell my mother, "When I do dangerous things, I do them very carefully."  I hope you enjoy this Fun Footage Friday!

Weather

I love how this part of the natural world influences us.  It determines what we wear, our mood, activities, and health.  Today was a cold (65F), windy, and cloudy.  I loved it though.  Walking to my truck in flip-flops, a hoodie, and shorts with the wind blowing in my face really lifted my spirits.  It made me slightly uncomfortable but that made the arrival to my truck that much sweeter.

Tonight this weather pattern continued so I dug out the fire pit and got a deer hide soaking in lye.  I lit up a fire and got to work on a bow.  It was the first time this side of summer that I didn't break a sweat doing manual labor.  However, instead of body odor I just smell really smokey.  Personally, I love the smell of a hardwood smoke.  Anyway, I made good progress on the bow and I reached the part of the process where I need to go real slow.  Oh, I also realized I don't have a string for this bow so I need to get on making one.  I might have to raid someone's agave or yucca plants.  Apparently cat gut makes a good bow string too.  So many options!

Pressure

By the end of the year I need to have ten videos done.  So, I've been pretty busy getting footage for that and editing stuff.  It's not a bad pressure because I think it's doable but I am under pressure.  I'm really enjoying getting things completed and seeing all the hard work come together.  Just today I finished an episode on pygmy rattlesnakes.  They're cool little creatures.  I think I could have made the video longer but I really just want to show people how cool the animal is and maybe throw out a few interesting things about it rather than sit there and regurgitate a bunch of facts that no one really cares about anyway.  I'd rather say a few interesting things and tell why they're so important.  If you someone wants to know the gestation period of the pygmy rattler they can just google that. 

This is me having some fun this weekend working with a black racer.  The dang thing bit me on the face twice... I can honestly say, I deserved it both times.

Dancing Egret~ Fun Footage Friday 13

This had to be some of the easiest footage I've ever recorded.  I was just hanging out on the side of a dirt road watching this reddish egret when all of a sudden it would prance off in sudden bursts then stand still for a few minutes before it would continue on another fanciful charade.  I presume this was its method of catching fish as it caught a couple small minnows while I was watching.  This video is a compilation of those charades as if it were dancing continuously.  All in all it was a good time and I hope you enjoy this footage!

Getting Lost

I get lost in the woods fairly often.  There's nothing like that terrible feeling when you're walking through the woods and it all starts looking the same.  You keep second guessing yourself and you might get panicky.  This is exactly what you shouldn't do.

When I get lost, I trust my instinct.  If I feel like one way is the right direction to get me back to a familiar place I go that way.  However, I'm pretty experienced at getting lost.  That's okay though because I'm even better at finding my way back.

I realize I'm lost when I decide to go back and things aren't the way I expected them to be.  For example, there isn't a path, a ditch, or a habitat change where I expected there to be one.  At that point I'm like, "Crap, I'm lost."  I could pull a Bear Grylls and climb way into the tree tops to see what's around.  In a forest that's not really possible because most of the tall trees are about the same height and you can't stand on those tiny branches at the top to get a decent look out over the forest to spot any landmarks.  If you find a tree that is much higher than the other trees give it a shot if you want.  What I do is go back to an area that I know I've been to before.  I tend to notice exceptionally large trees or less common plant species.  Once I find that place I can usually start back tracking from there.  I tend to get on a game trail that seems like it goes in the right direction.  I'll follow and look for anything familiar.  These trails usually will lead me to a landmark that will reset my bearings.

I always look at an area that I'll be exploring from a google earth to get an idea of the lay of the land.

The image below shows an area that I was lost in but then I found this odd looking cypress tree that I had seen earlier on the way in.

Sharks

Having spent a fair amount of time on the ocean I'm pretty familiar with near shore shark species.  I've swam with them and had them at the end of my fishing line.

I've always had the view that sharks are just another fish in the ocean... with teeth!  Like many large predators sharks have gained a pretty bad reputation.  It's partially deserved I guess but blown way out of proportion by the media.  Shark "attacks" on surfers happen every so often but I'm convinced that the local attacks are not intentional for the most part.

A friend of mine got bit by a shark on the hand while surfing one day.  It did not sever any appendages but the bite area was pretty messed up.  My friend has full function of his hand and suffers no long term injury from the experience.  Surfers sit on the surfboards half way submerged in the water just past where the waves are breaking.  When they see that perfect swell coming they start paddling so the wave picks them up at the most opportune time.  While the surfer is waiting for that wave schools of bait fish are moving along the shore at roughly the same distance as the surfer from the shore.  BTW he has a bushy bushy blond hair doo. lol
When sharks attack these schools of fish they blindly tear through the school, sometimes leaping out through the top of the school.  This erratic method of hunting is not very precise so they go for whatever catches their attention.  My guess is that my friend was sitting right on top of a school of fish and when that shark tore through it his pale hand caught the shark's attention.  However, the shark quickly realized his hand wasn't a fish and let go.

With all that being said, I'm working on a trip south to film sharks underwater.  I'll be in the water with them and I'm a little nervous but after researching shark behavior plus my personal interactions with them throughout my life I don't think I'll let some irrational fear get the best of me.

This is my fishing buddy with a shark caught from his kayak.  Sharks are the single most common catch for us when in near shore water off of Playalinda Beach.

Birdering

I'm sorry, I'm a terrible person.  Ok, so I came up with a new hobby of my own where I try to take candid pictures of birders.  This is a hobby that was conceived from boredom and birthed by a mischievous personality.

Where I live in Florida thousands of birders flock every Winter to watch for a high diversity of bird life that passes through the area.  When I came up with birdering I wasn't interested in birds hardly at all and I thought it was hilarious how birders bought all this expensive gear just to look at some birds.  I didn't really get what the big deal was because birds were birds and they were just everywhere.

I began taking pictures of them when they weren't looking.  I found this to be quite a thrill as in the middle of your shot they could turn and catch taking their picture.  I got pretty good at shooting from the hip.  Getting the photo framed well was difficult, using no viewfinder.  Also, getting a shot of birders doing something very typical of birders is considered more prestigious.

I'm pretty proud of this shot of a pair of wild birders.  As the founder of birdering I'm a pretty skilled birderer.

This is another pair with very expensive optics and they were attempting to hide in the bushes out of sight of any prying birderer.

Quality

Quality takes time and effort.  Time + effort = work and my slacking nature doesn't like that.  According to my calculations I have to work hard for good quality.  As hard work increases and quality improves laziness will begin to dwindle.

Specifically I'm aiming to heighten the quality of my Fun Footage Friday videos.  These are short weekly wildlife clips.   I was inspired to make them better after watching a 30 second clip that comes with windows media player.  It was a few quick, quality scenes of wildlife set to some relaxing/creepy music.

I figured I have access to good original music and good original wildlife footage.  This Friday I'm releasing one that I hope sets the kind of quality I'm hoping for.  Also, for each video I'm going to stay consistent with a theme.  This Friday the theme is Ocean.  I'm going to show a few shots of things I filmed in the ocean.  Look forward to sea turtles, jellyfish, barracudas, and sharks!