Large_Al
03-03-2006, 09:04 AM
Amazing Finch Behaviours (http://www.abc.net.au/nature/vampire/finches.htm)
In May 1995 their dream came true and Australian film-makers David Parer, Elizabeth Parer-Cook and their three year old daughter Zoe, returned to the Galapagos to make several films including "Islands of the Vampire Birds".
Over a two year period they spent 500 days in the field, 200 days of which were spent on boats. Assisted by a guide David Day and an Ecuadorian assistant Segundo Guaman they travelled to many islands of the archipelago including Darwin and Wolf to film the vampire finches.
Wolf Island is dominated by pounding waves, steep cliffs and tens of thousands of seabirds - a tiny speck of land 200km north of the main Galapagos Archipelago.
In 1964 an American Expedition landed there and scientists observed for the first time the incredible blood sucking behaviour of the vampire finches, something the Parers desperately wanted to film. Over their two year stay in the Galapagos they visited Wolf many times. And what slowly unfolded before their camera was a litany of feeding techniques and survival strategies that were extraordinary in the extreme.
For most of the year the climate on Wolf Island is tinder dry and the seeds that are produced in the brief periods of rain are quickly eaten by the finches. So to survive the long dry spells the finches turn to the seabirds for sustenance.
In the breeding season when the masked boobies lay their eggs, the finches sneak up behind them and sip the lubricating fluids from around the egg as it emerges from their cloaca - a food rich in protein.
http://www.abc.net.au/nature/vampire/img/finchvamp.jpg
Click link above for the rest
In May 1995 their dream came true and Australian film-makers David Parer, Elizabeth Parer-Cook and their three year old daughter Zoe, returned to the Galapagos to make several films including "Islands of the Vampire Birds".
Over a two year period they spent 500 days in the field, 200 days of which were spent on boats. Assisted by a guide David Day and an Ecuadorian assistant Segundo Guaman they travelled to many islands of the archipelago including Darwin and Wolf to film the vampire finches.
Wolf Island is dominated by pounding waves, steep cliffs and tens of thousands of seabirds - a tiny speck of land 200km north of the main Galapagos Archipelago.
In 1964 an American Expedition landed there and scientists observed for the first time the incredible blood sucking behaviour of the vampire finches, something the Parers desperately wanted to film. Over their two year stay in the Galapagos they visited Wolf many times. And what slowly unfolded before their camera was a litany of feeding techniques and survival strategies that were extraordinary in the extreme.
For most of the year the climate on Wolf Island is tinder dry and the seeds that are produced in the brief periods of rain are quickly eaten by the finches. So to survive the long dry spells the finches turn to the seabirds for sustenance.
In the breeding season when the masked boobies lay their eggs, the finches sneak up behind them and sip the lubricating fluids from around the egg as it emerges from their cloaca - a food rich in protein.
http://www.abc.net.au/nature/vampire/img/finchvamp.jpg
Click link above for the rest