2023-08-21 07:23:18
They are only graceful when hovering over water. With their yellow membranous pouches under their gigantic beaks, pelicans aren’t the most elegant birds to film. However, Nadya Dorofeeva and Annette Gourdon manage to restore a little charm to these greedy piscivores, in their animal documentary.
The directors followed for two years a colony of 2,000 white pelicans, which spend half the year in southern Russia, on a small island in the middle of Lake Manych. Through a classic narration, the documentary makes us discover the activity of birds by following the cycle of their life. From the birth of small black-feathered chicks to the first attempts at flight, through group fishing techniques and majestic gliding flights.
The presence of pelicans is threatened
” Where do they come from ? What attracts them here? Where are they leaving? » Voice-over questions punctuate the documentary, attempting to sprinkle it with a bit of mystery. An ornithologist from the Moscow Zoo studying the behavior of the colony makes short appearances to give some scientific explanations. We learn, for example, that the gular sac, the large pouch located under the beak of pelicans, is used by them to regulate their body temperature in times of heat wave, in addition to serving as a landing net when fishing. We would have liked the film to dwell a little more on this scientist and his work.
This lack of explanation is fortunately compensated by the superb images and close-ups. They are all the more remarkable in that they are very rare: these pelicans had never been approached so closely by other wildlife filmmakers.
Such a feat is not likely to happen again anytime soon, as the birds are under threat. The level of the lake continues to decrease due, among other things, to human activities and global warming.
#restore #image #white #pelicans