Back with an urge to Dive and a Drone
As some of you might know – if you followed my IG as well ..
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… I spent the end of last year in my first, original hometown, the city of classical music and philosophy in cafes.
Now, I am back in the Philippines, and once I had touched down, I felt the immediate urge to go diving. And when I dive, I bring a camera. And, these days, I am more inclined to film then to shoot stills. And, in the approximately 6 weeks since my return, I had some luck. Yes, it takes good diving skills to get quality footage. But that’s not enough. Neptune needs to provide the fauna and the animal behavior to film. If the conditions are not good or the animals simply decide to hide or not do much, I won’t end up with much to show for on ze YouTube. But I did, and for your viewing pleasure:
Salps and Evolution Blabla
The day we were in Apo Island, just off Dauin, in December ’24, the water column was filled with gelatinous, translucent organisms. Were these jellyfish? No! They are in fact, somewhat close to us, phylogenetically. And, so I decided to lean out of the window a bit bio-philosophically during my narration which went with the footage from Apo that day:
Crabs Fighting
Crabs are pretty timid animals when facing humans. Smart move, lots of humans eat them (I don’t!). When facing other crabs, they can often be fierce. And I managed to film such a crab fight during a night dive, a fight which was happening at the base of a really pretty anemone, which I hadn’t seen before, ever:
Sea Urchin Sperm
So wot did the fire sea urchins do that night in mid January 2025, off the coast of Negros, in the Philippines? The same thing as Arnold, in Venice Beach in 1977. You’ll have to watch the video in a separate video, due to some YouTube policy, but you should, and you will get the point…
Now, the urchins are caaaming probably even more than Arnie in the 70s. The night we dived (dove?) we witnessed this intense spawning event. Lots of sperm released from the urchins, and urchins climbing on top of other urchins. Crazy stuff, don’t miss this one. The video also has nice Bobbit worm and ghost pipefish footage:
Mangroves by Drone
And, finally: My sweetheart bought me a drone for my bday. A DJI Neo. A great tool for the nature image maker! I have high hopes for it, especially for filming the Philippines’ amazing mangroves. A first sample is here:
I hope you enjoyed these,
Best Fishes,
Klaus
