- Melissa Sprenne
- Friday, June 24, 2022
This weekly blog series, published each Friday evening, features five films from streaming services which you can access for free using your library card. The five selections this week are nature documentaries - just because we're stuck inside doesn't mean we can't still enjoy some of the wonders of our world!
We can't travel right now, but we can still visit interesting locations and discover the ingenuity and beauty of nature through the lenses of photographers and scientists - all from our own homes. I think it does us good to remember the wonder and awe of our world. If you haven't exclaimed, "That can't be a real thing!" at least once while watching these films, I would be surprised!
2011 -- 60 minutes
----------------------------
Birds of the Gods is a PBS movie narrated by David Attenborough that follows two field scientists, Miriam Supuma and Paul Igag, into the forests of New Guinea as they search for Birds of Paradise. This family of birds has some of the most spectacular plumage and dance moves! Besides getting to see some truly amazing birds, you also will learn a little about what it's like to be a field scientist. "It's a challenge in itself to working, being a researcher and working in a remote area. Sometimes, you get to spend months and months out in the field. You miss your comforts in life. The trade-off is that you get to listen to the birds singing in the morning. You wake up to that every day." -Miriam Supuma
----------------------------
Available on Hoopla
2016 -- 70 minutes
----------------------------
This documentary is about self-taught photographer Robert Oelman, who moved to Colombia and made it his life's work to photograph undiscovered insects. These are striking examples of the wild and weird ways insects have evolved in their environments. They are nature's art. If you visit his Flickr page, you can see even more of his stunning photography, which includes birds, plants, and mammals along with insects.
----------------------------
Available on Kanopy
2009 -- 50 minutes
----------------------------
Plants that can follow scents or call for help? Flowers that generate their own heat and smell like poop? Seed pods that can drill, explode, and even function as a squirt gun?! You never knew plants were so dynamic! There are some interesting music choices, but the information and photography is so interesting, I can forgive them that.
----------------------------
Available on Hoopla
2017 -- 54 minutes
----------------------------
Are birds as feather-brained as popular myth says they are? Probably not, according to this documentary. Birds in the crow family (ravens, rooks, jackdaws) and the parrot family (kea, macaws) are exceptionally clever in the wild. New Caledonian crows even create and use simple tools! Scientists test the learning ability and mental capacity of these families of birds - watch how they plan for the future, recognize individual humans, solve puzzles, and show cooperation - many activities that people have long assumed only primates and other large-brained mammals could do.
----------------------------
Available on Kanopy
2017 -- 52 minutes
----------------------------
This last selection is about how scientists in all sorts of fields are being inspired by insects - their structures, their behavior, their products - to improve the lives of humans. Learn about how silk from silkworms is being used to 3D-print bones and deliver medication. Ladybird beetles have an incredible immune system and scientists are trying to figure out what chemicals make them so resistant. The way ants lay pheromone trails is informing how robot drones in a warehouse setting operate. Colorado potato beetles have an interesting shell structure that may help architects build better buildings.
----------------------------
Available on Hoopla
I do hope you enjoy these films and that they light a spark of joy and wonder in you and your family for our stunning world.