If you’ve ever seen a clip from the BBC’s Earthflight, you’ve probably wondered how filmmakers get such amazing footage of flying from the birds’ perspectives. This is an example of just one of their techniques: a radio-controlled Vulturecam.

And here’s another: flying an ultralight with Barnacle Geese over London.

If you haven’t yet seen clips of Earthflight, be sure to check out this jaw dropping one of pelicans soaring over jumping devil rays. Or watch more flying vids in our archives.

From the BBC’s Wild South America, fly above the phenomenally massive volcanoes high up in the Andes mountain range in South America’s Altiplano. Plus, witness the region’s flamingos as they “dance” in a colony together — quite a sight to see!

via Chirpy.tv.

With topography data from NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, this 30 second video of Mars shows all six NASA spacecraft to reach the Red Planet: Viking 1, Viking 2, Pathfinder, Spirit, Opportunity, Phoenix.

Toward the end of the video, you can also see Gale Crater, where Curiosity is aiming to touch down on Aug 5 at 10:31pm PST, Aug 6 at 1:31am EST, Aug 6 at 5:31am Universal. (Watch it live on NASA TV.)

For more details, check out this infographic from Space.com: 

(It’s a bit bigger if you click!) 

This lady bug swarm video from Boulder, Colorado got popular in 2010, but the kids hadn’t seen it until this weekend and loved just how colorful this particular swarm was.

Lady bugs or lady birds are beetles and can be found in the UK, Ireland, Australia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, South Africa, New Zealand, India, Malta, and in parts of Canada and the US. According to wikipedia, there are over 5,000 species of them, with more than 450 of those in the United States. As examples, check out these two galleries of their diversity: one from the UK and one of Coccinellidae in India.

There’s also details about their anatomy here. Take special note about how their colorful casings pull up to reveal soft dark wings underneath.

Now this is an environmentally-friendly and resourceful improvement on a scarecrow! It seems that, without the use of harmful chemicals, this Japanese farmer came up with a simple system to keep local crows from eating the vegetable patch.How? Things are kept moving and shaking around the growing plants using that roaring little river next to the farm. Follow the strings! 

via ScienceDump.