Mike the ringer

in Director's Blog  by March 30, 2014 0 comments

Filmmakers Blog, May 28, 2013

This is Mike, a ringer from South Africa. He travels to Aras Turkey to volunteer at the bird banding station during migration season. How he got there is an interesting story… One year at the Aras Bird banding station  someone banded a “Turkish” barn swallow. This same swallow was later re-trapped in South Africa.  A dialogue between the banding stations started and Mike ended up following the swallows path, travelling to Aras Turkey to volunteer at the very place where the swallow was first caught. He’s retired now, spends each spring and fall banding birds at various places in the world and by doing so, contributes enormously to bird conservation. The planet needs more Mike’s.

 

 

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Filming at Lake Kuyucuk near Kars Turkey

in Director's Blog  by March 30, 2014 0 comments

Filmmakers blog, May 28, 2013

Filming at Lake Kuyucuk near Kars Turkey

Lake Kuyucuk is near the far east border between Turkey and Armenia, near the Dead Sea. It is a beautiful spot, made more beautiful because of the conservation work of the KuzeyDoga Society. We filmed here during spring migration with Çağan H. Şekercioğlu. Çağan with KuzeyDoga played a key role in gaining international Ramsar recognition for Lake Kuyucuk. The lake is home to over 40,000 birds of 227 species, a key habitat for globally Endangered White-headed Duck and Egyptian Vulture. It also provides a safe stop over site for migrating songbirds, and it is mecca for international birdwatchers.

 

Bird Banding Hut at dusk. Lake Kuyucuk  near Kars, Turkey

There is an international convention going on inside that caravan!  Me a Canadian director with a crew from France, filming tireless volunteers from different corners of the earth who have come to Lake each spring to band migrating birds.  With mist nests out every morning and late afternoon, they have documented hundreds of species over the years. Çağan H. Şekercioğlu won a Whitley Award in 2008 and again in 2013 for his work here, which aims to protect wetland ecosystems whilst bringing real benefits to local people.

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Lights Out for Earth Hour will save migrating birds

in Conservation  by March 28, 2014 0 comments

Earth Hour is tomorrow! On Saturday March 29 between 8:30 and 9:30 thousands of homes and businesses across the planet will be turning off their lights to celebrate their commitment to the planet.

Humans should of course be concerned about the affect that light pollution and overuse of electricity will have on the environment every day of the year. Light pollution can be deadly for songbirds as they migrate at night. The Fatal Light Awareness Project (FLAP) estimates that between 100 million and 1 billion birds are killed due to window collisions in North America every year.

So even if it just for one hour, Earth Hour helps provide safe passage for migrating birds during spring migration season.

FLAP has just launched a new tool to alert people to the concentration of birds as they fly through the Great Lakes Region. Bird Migration Tracker can let people know to turn lights out at night and treat windows during the day. Bird Migration Tracker is free and available online, try it out yourself on FLAP’s website.

The tool is a live-streaming Web page that displays current weather conditions, moon phase and weather radar. Flocks of migrating birds are so highly concentrated that they appear on weather radar!

Alert levels range from low to extreme and are determined by a compilation of indicators displayed on the webpage. It is imperative to turn lights out at night during Heavy to Extreme intensity alerts.

Have you used Bird Migration Tracker? Tell us what you think.

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Çağan and road kill Near Kars, Turkey

in Director's Blog  by March 27, 2014 0 comments

May 27. 2013 Kars Turkey

Çağan and road kill Near Kars Turkey

Dr. Çağan H. Şekercioğlu is a conservation ecologist at the University of Utah, but it’s his field-work in his native Turkey that got us excited about including him in SongbirdSOS. Our trip to film with him near Kars was C R A Z Y. Cagan certainly is a guy on the go – a force to be reckoned with. We had just met and we were traveling with him in our rented mini van and he suddenly demanded that we stop immediately! He jumped out of the car, grabbed his camera, and began photographing. He had spotted a rare Egyptian vulture.  (This is a man who has a bird list nearly 600 species long). The vulture was circling road kill. The road kill being another bird. So we all jumped out filmed him telling us this story.

http://www.kuzeydoga.org/

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Amar Arhab

in Director's Blog  by March 27, 2014 0 comments

Zupten Netherlands, May 24, 2013

Here is Amar Arhab, our wonderful camera man, kindly draining the water out of the water jugs we used as counter weights for our high angle shots, while at the same tie trying to squeeze in a smoke break. That’s the truth of our shooting schedule — we never really stop moving.

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