Today I show you how to cook up the unborn young of a Gallus gallus domesticus. Sounds horrible doesn’t it?
Materials
Griddle and an egg.
Procedure
Heat the griddle up to 400F. Break the egg over the griddle.
Result
The egg splashes down, dividing the yolk into different parts.
Observations
Over easy or sunny side up? Personally I prefer scrambled. To quote Gir, “Chicken…hehehehehehe….I’m gonna eat you!”. Ahem…yes….The yolk splash is particularly yum..err interesting to watch in slow motion, especially the way it divides as it strikes the griddle. The visual quality of the egg white as it is first coming down is also quite interesting. The thing I think I like most about it is how thick it is and yet how clear it remains…well at least until it is subjected to heat for a few moments. This shot was filmed over a period of 3s, yet even in that amount of time we can watch the egg white begin to become opaque. Now if you all will excuse me, I’m going to go eat breakfast. Enjoy!
Today we are looking at a bird eating. I know it doesn’t sound terribly fascinating, but it is relatively compelling.
Materials
A lawn.
A bird.
Procedure
Be wery wery qwiet, we’re watching birds.
Result
The thing that got me about this video is how much of what is actually going on was completely missed by the human (well this human anyway) eye. The trashing to the side after the bird dips its beak into the grass was completely unnoticeable. Likewise the failure to munch that seed and subsequent dropping was also too fast. All I saw sitting there was the bird shaking its head around in a relative blur. High speed could bring a much larger understanding of what birds and animals do. Unfortunately most systems are anything but portable. The GigaView is the most portable one I have used to date. It also has a battery pack option that will allow you to work untethered for several hours.
I was watching some birds happily pecking away in my neighbors yard and I was hoping one of the birds would take off. As my luck would have it a neighborhood kid rode their bike by at that moment and spooked all of them. Turned out to be a neat shot.
Materials
Two Neighbors. One to have a yard with birds and the other to ride by on a bike.
Pack of birds.
Procedure
Allow birds to randomly distribute themselves on a neighbors yard, then by chance a neighbor should ride by on a bike.
Result
It is believed by some that the bike is the natural predator of the bird, as such the birds will take flight immediately upon sighting this loathsome predator. Ok, so perhaps that isn’t exactly why the bird spook, sounds good though. The lighting on this particular shot showing through the wings of all of the birds is particularly cool. It is neat to watch all of the birds in flight, how they coordinate and manage to avoid one another without the aid of radar or radio is spectacular. Actually for an interesting article on how birds flock and swarm, read this.
