Post Category → Video

How a Great Gray Owl Uses Sound to Hunt Under Snow

Incredible footage from the CBC show The Nature of Thing of a Great Gray Owl hunting voles burrowing in the snow, relying almost exclusively on its incredible sense of hearing. And specially adapted feathers that allow it to swoop in in dead silence.

Ranging from 61 to 84 cm (24 to 33 in) in length, the Great Gray Owl is the world’s largest species of owl. Their breeding range stretches from the Pacific coast of North America –California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia– east to Quebec and in Europe from Finland and Estonia across northern Asia. The CBC video was shot in Manitoba.

Via kottke.org.

Watch ‘Only a Child’, Oscar-shortlisted Visual Poem Celebrating 12-year-old’s 1992 Rio Summit Speech

In case you missed it, this is ‘Only a Child’, the 2022 Oscar-shortlisted animated short directed by Simone Giampaolo who brings together 20 animation directors to give shape, color, vibrance and a renewed urgency to the powerful speech delivered by Severn Cullis-Suzuki at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio. She was 12 at the time and her presentation garnered worldwide attention.

”I’m only a child, yet I know we are all part of a family — five billion strong; in fact, 30 million species strong — and borders and governments will never change that. I’m only a child, yet I know we are all in this together and should act as one single world towards one single goal.”

Watch: Maggie Haberman & Jonathan Swan – On “Regime Change” & Inside The Trump Presidency on The Daily Show

Jon Stewart’s sit-down with Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan will likely be the best interview with the authors about their new book, ‘Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump’.

Insightful, smart, entertaining and funny. Because sometimes you just have to laugh. Even at the story about the time when Trump boasted that he’ll be bigger than Mao, Stalin or Hitler.

From the show notes:

New York Times reporters and authors of the new book “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, sit down with Jon Stewart to discuss the surprising revelations they uncovered about the Trump administration, like the president being absent from the room when his own team discussed the Epstein files, as well as the motivation behind controversial moves like the tariff policy rollout and the Iran war. They also speak to how Trump controls the terms when reporters reach him on his cell phone and compare his first term to his second, which they describe as a story of hubris, built on gut feelings and belief from his cabinet that he is someone of destiny – because who else can survive four indictments and two assassination attempts to win the presidency a second time?

Watch ‘Freshwater’, a mini-documentary by dream hampton

In case you missed it when when it was featured on NYT Docs and PBS POV in 2023, this is ‘Freshwater’ by dream hampton, an evocative short taking on memory, loss and displacement in Detroit communities after devastating floods in 2021. And likely the most beautifully poignant nine minutes you’ll experience today.

One of the the most thoughtful capsule reviews I read was by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, who writes:

‘Freshwater’ is “a meditative, intimate, quietly devastating piece that uses the language of memory, water, and place to make climate change feel personal. dream narrates, talking us through flooded basements of homes in her home city of Detroit, Michigan.”

And in the film notes, hampton explains:

“Freshwater is a portrait of remembrance, of flooded Midwestern basements and maintaining connection in the wake of ongoing displacement, abandonment and climate catastrophe. This film was meant to be small in every way–lingering shots that seem like photographs until the wind blows a leaf or a raindrop disturbs a puddle. Similarly the intentionally small production was meant to be healing. It was a retreat into a cadre of like-minded community of Detroit artists after doing work on three projects that were at major studios. I made Freshwater to remind myself I’m an artist, but also to reinforce the organizing principle about the power of small, local organizing.”