On January 30th at 8:15 p.m. on ORF 2
Vienna (OTS) – Nature is full of magical moments, but all too often they escape our perception. The “Universum” documentary “Magical Moments of Nature” by Christian Baumeister (ORF editing: Doris Hochmayr) makes what has never been seen visible on Tuesday, January 30, 2024 at 8:15 p.m. on ORF 2 and celebrates the magic of the moment. Extreme slow motion recordings show rapid animal behavior slowed down up to 40 times: for example, when a kingfisher rises from the water in super slow motion after a successful dive, a pigeon tail comes into the sights of a crab spider while searching for nectar, or a peregrine falcon – the fastest bird in the world – hunts on starlings. “Magic Moments of Nature” lets TV audiences see nature with new eyes! Every moment is a feast for the senses.
A frog sits in its pond and catches flies. Nothing seems unusual about that. But the super slow motion reveals exactly what the frog goes through to get full: it catapults itself out of the water, often up to a meter high. His legs are straddled like those of a high bar gymnast, his tongue runs way ahead of his body. Then another double axel – and still he comes away empty-handed and falls back into the cool water with a graceful header. He performs this feat countless times a day, usually unsuccessfully. The kingfisher, on the other hand, has it a little easier on a perch. It can spot its prey from above and stab it precisely into the water. The colorful little fish hunter is a master of precision, a high diver of exquisite grace. Like the father, so not the son. Young kingfishers have undergone countless attempts before they manage to pierce the surface of the water with the tip of their beak.
Pond mussels slumber underwater on the sandy bottom. Seemingly. The time-lapse reveals the shellfish to be agile hurdlers who can hardly sit still. But that’s not the reason why a fish is particularly attracted to them. The bitterling is looking for a shelter for its offspring. And to do this he must succeed in taming a pond mussel. He repeatedly brushes against the edge of the shell of the opened mussel until it no longer reflexively closes in front of him. Now a female bitterling can lay her eggs directly into the shell. Protected by their strong shells, the tiny young fish mature and only leave their host when they are fast and agile. At first glance, the nervous buzzing above the fallen fruit in the shade of a tree is not a place of beauty. However, the close-up shows how much organized tactics there are in the supposed tangle:
Hornet fighter squadrons line up and lead wasps into ambush. A targeted attack brings enough protein-rich prey for the larvae. The fallen fruit remains untouched.
If you look closely, the idyll of the flower meadow next door also has its pitfalls. Crab spiders lurk behind colorful flower heads, waiting for unwary hungry insects to collect nectar. In the middle of the sea of flowers, a pigeontail hovers like a helicopter from flower to flower with 80 wing beats per second – it snacks on up to 1,000 plants per day. And yet it hardly falls victim to the crab spider. The extra-long tongue, which provides distance to each flower, saves its life several times an hour. Hardly anyone can observe the hunting habits of one of the fastest dive fliers in the world, the peregrine falcon, with the naked eye. Especially not when he tries his luck in a flock of starlings. Surrounded by thousands of opportunities to take action, hunting flights through an amoebic tangle of birds are rarely successful. The falcon’s clearly planned flight line fails due to the magic of the moment in which a new flight formation emerges in the ordered chaos of the starling flock. In absolute darkness, the ears take over vision. The infrared camera shows how precise it is using the example of water bats. They glide silently just above the surface of the water and precisely grab every insect that is trapped there. An aerial ballet, rarely filmed before, of impressive beauty.
The program and other editions of the nature film series “Universum” are available on ORF ON and in the TVthek app.