We are so excited! This particular video that we have posted on YouTube has had over 1000 views!
What is so exciting to us is that the video has been popular all over the world! People from almost every state of the US have watched the video. Most of the viewers are from New York and California.
Just a few of the countries where the video has been watched: Pakistan! South Korea, India, Thailand, Morocco, Egypt, Poland, Romania, very popular in England and Japan, Germany, Italy, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Argentina and the Ukraine!
It just amazes me how the internet and YouTube have brought the world together.
In a couple of days, I will be posting a new video celebrating this event! It will feature the Ferruginous Hawk in slow motion! Stay tuned!
We are so excited about our very first ad which was created totally “in house” by the Unique Views of Nature team.
The hardest part was selecting what images to showcase; we have so many to choose from now.
The first step was using Animation in Photoshop CS4 to create the first part where the black and white photos turn into color. Then we used Motion (bundled with Final Cut Pro, the program we use to edit video) to have our name scroll behind the color line. We had a bit of a challenge to get the timing right between the two, but we did it. Final Cut was used to add the cool transitions.
The funnest part was learning how to create our very own music using Garageband. We spent a couple of late nights laughing until our sides hurt trying to figure it all out. Things really got crazy when we hauled out the microphone and added the helium effect to our voices. Thankfully, that was deleted when the sun started to rise and we regained our senses.
We are so appreciative of YouTube and all of the awesome tutorials available. They really helped us out.
We are now working on our next creative endeavor. It includes some really cute little critters doing cute critter stuff. And of course, a musical masterpiece from Garageband.
Through the warm desert winter and balmy spring we have been traveling southern Arizona videoing and photographing the beautiful wildflowers. Now that the temperature is over 100 degrees we have retreated to the indoors where we’ve been chained to our computers going through thousands of photographs and hours of video footage. We’ve discovered that we’ve got some great stuff!
We also were busy revamping our website to make it easier to navigate. And, we built a gift shop to showcase our products!
Visit our Gift Shop for a collection of poster prints available for purchase. Choose from either 16×20 or 20×30. The poster selection will continue to grow.
We also have four videos for purchase. Three are nature themed.
The Birds of Prey-Raptor Free Flight features the birds of prey of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.
The Hummingbirds-Joy of Motherhood follows three different female hummingbirds through the different phases of motherhood.
The Magic of Butterflies features tropical butterflies set to soothing music for a visual and auditory delight.
Lastly, we have a video created for our favorite non-profit, Equine Voices Rescue and Sanctuary. See how and why the sanctuary was founded. Meet some of the volunteers, adopted horses and their guardians. All proceeds from the sale of this video go to the Sanctuary.
Here is an awesome shot of an Eastern Collared Lizard. The lighting was perfect to capture the beautiful blue coloring. As we come across other interesting and unique photos and videos, we will post them. The best ones will be posters for sale. This guy is available as a poster in the Gift Shop!
To non-residents of Arizona, you would think there would be a raging river with the name of Whitewater–but there isn’t. Depending on how much rain southern Arizona receives, there are some ponds where the Snow Geese and Sandhill Cranes spend the winter. They usually reside here from October thru March. Whitewater Draw Wildlife Area is located between Bisbee and Tombstone Arizona in the Sulfur Springs Valley. Since it is about a 2 hour drive from Tucson, we go as often as we can to video and photograph these beautiful birds. This video is a culmination of two years of trips. We are fortunate to be able to get as much footage as we did–many visitors went away empty handed. In addition to the cranes and geese, we were thrilled to see an avolet, white egret, great blue heron, a mated pair of great horned owls, and various ducks. All in all, I’d say we hit the jackpot!
Photographs taken at Whitewater Draw Wildlife Area
Great Horned Owl couple roosting in the rafters of an empty hay shed
American Wigeon female--notice her blue bill
American Wigeon male -- the blue on his bill is even brighter
Snow Geese taking off--every little movement spooked them
Landing Gear down-Sandhill Cranes landing
Awww, aren't they cute? Bufflehead male w/juveniles
I don't know what kind of baby duck this is, but it is just adorable!
Since Thanksgiving is coming up, I thought it was appropriate to include a gratuitous image of a wild turkey. This was taken at one of our favorite places to hang out at, Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. The feathers were absolutely beautiful, especially when the light was just right. It was surprising to me how blunt the feather edges were, they almost looked like roof shingles.
Just for fun–delight in watching some fun and fantastic animals as they enjoy their Thanksgiving meals. Or as they try to. This 1 1/2 minute video includes a Cactus Wren trying to break up a piece of kibble to a Great Horned Owl downing his favorite food, a mouse. The ocelot is enjoying a frozen tuna-cicle–it is still warm here in Tucson Arizona for Thanksgiving. We even have the turkey on the video and our favorite, the Costa’s hummingbird. For more hummers, check out our hummingbird video on the Video page in the Gift Shop!
