YouTube right now is in a zone of greatness. Tons of videos, all for free.
The only time I've visited a site in the zone before was freshman-year-college Napster. It was the same deal: completely free content that had everyone walking around high-fiving and wondering how lucky they were.
Well, like Napster, I doubt that YouTube's period of greatness will last much longer. Just today I read an article about how YouTube has taken the rights to sell anything hosted on its site...but it's hard to be surprised. All good things must come to an end, and all valuable good things will be ended with a fury.
Anyway, I wanted to do an obligitory "blogger links to a bunch of YouTube videos" post. And since this is a birding blog, I thought I'd link to a bunch of sweet bird/birding videos, which there is surprisingly no short supply of.
Let's surf this info-media-tainment superhighway before the toll booths are installed!
A brief birding survey of YouTube reveals the different attitudes people have toward birds. The above clip is titled "Dude. Birds." and was posted by a couple non-birders (it seems) who stumbled upon and were quite impressed by a huge flock of snow geese in a field in DE. However in the below clip, titled "Snowballin' Geese," a couple kids, you guessed it, chuck snowballs at geese sitting on a frozen pond. Hey, to each his own.
A lot of videos on YouTube feel the need to add a soundtrack when one isn't necessary. I love the lame inspirational music over this really boring video of a Reed Warbler from Japan:
The music is better in this beautiful, mesmerizing video of Northern Gannets:
YouTube is great for finding video of birds that I've yet to see, or even hear of. In this sense it could be used as a field guide that shows you what birds look like (and sound like) when you actually encounter them. Here are some close-ups of a rufous hummingbird, something I've never seen:
Or a honeymoon video of an Albatross (Yellow-Nosed?) taking off in the Galapagos:
And this is a rare species that I woundn't mind NOT seeing in the wild:
OK well that's all for now. YouTube is excellent, and there are a lot lot more bird videos to see. Check it before planning a vacation or before heading out for the fall migration...cuz it might not last long.
¶ 2:07 PM
