notes from the field

Night Stalkers Episode Details

2012-01-10T23:55:00.000Z

Ammonite's Night Stalkers series is being screened worldwide, here is an episode guide:

Night Stalkers: Jaguar Ambush
An expert team of night-filming specialists go into the jungles of Costa Rica on the hunt for Central Americas big cats. Pumas, ocelots and the elusive jaguar all live in the dense tropical forest, but filming them is far from an easy task. Starlight, thermal and infrared cameras are deployed throughout the forest, together with remotely operated cameras suspended above and on the forest floor.

Night Stalkers: Crocodile War
This episode exposes the real nature and behavior of crocodiles, we discover that,
far from being simple killing machines, there's a sophisticated side to these fascinating reptiles.

Night Stalkers: Leopard Battleground
In Yala National Park on the small island of Sri Lanka lives one of the highest leopard populations in the world. Ammonite's unique equipment, follow these secretive solitary creatures in the complete darkness of the Sri Lankan jungle and observes them leading surprisingly social lives.

Night Stalkers: Hyena Gangs

Thousands of wildebeest and zebra migrate through Kenya's Masai Mara National Reserve every year, the hyenas team up to hunt them cooperatively. Using specially developed cameras the playful and sensitive nature of this intelligent animal is revealed.

Brilliant Bioluminescence

2011-12-01T16:17:00.000Z

This is a repost from earlier this year but now we have this Youtube clip from Ammonite's latest film Hunt For The Giant Squid it seems like a good idea to remind you of that magical filming expedition.

We are in Belize filming bioluminescent marine creatures. The bit of Belize where we are doing this is an hour’s bumpy ride on a boat from Dangriga to South Water Caye, an island which measures about the size of a cruise ship. The lodge where we are staying and working is also a marine biology study centre. Professor Jim Morin is working with us and has set up a laboratory there so we can film the work that he is doing with bioluminescent animals.

One especially astonishing creature that he is studying is a bioluminescent Ostracod, an animal the size of a sesame seed which has the capacity to set itself ablaze in blue light in order to attract a girlfriend.

Every night after a full moon an extraordinary spectacle takes place; one night Jim took us to the marine mating grounds where we waited in the boat until sunset, then we slipped into the water and waited for the light show.

The beautiful prelude to ostracod action is the dance of the female marine worms who rise to the water’s surface spraying out their eggs in a mass of green light attracting hundreds of males who rush over to fertilise them, the water fizzes with action, it's like watching hundreds of tiny catherine wheels going off all over the water.

Ten minutes after the worms have got going, the ostracods start swimming upwards, slowly at first, we just see the odd line of vertical lights coming up among the corals and seaweeds, moving gently in the current. Each male ostracod gives off four dots to signal their presence to any females who might be around, then the lights become more and more until the water is pulsating with wavy lines of vertical blue dots all moving upwards.

Just when the water seems already full of light, the horizontal swimmers start, their trails of blue light spots fan out laterally, soon the ocean becomes an intense trippy matrix, it's mesmerising. Finally the lights fade away and we come up out of the water to make our way home, the night sky is indigo and massed with stars, we sit quietly in the boat on the way home because we can’t quite believe what we saw.

If you click on the Facebook button on the right you'll find an album of photos from Belize.

Ammonite Celebrates Squid Delivery

2011-10-05T17:31:00.004+01:00

Rob Morgan who worked at Ammonite across the Night Stalkers series and The Hunt For The Giant Squid shares his donuts with Alf the fox.

The Ammonite crew are elated and exhausted, FIVE films have been delivered to National Geographic this year, on Monday our incredible Giant Squid film arrived in its final state on the Nat Geo desk and we can now start celebrating our achievements.

The celebrations are tinged with sadness however, because we are saying farewell to some wonderful people who have worked with us over the last months; Alice Marlow, Rob Morgan and John Ruthven have now gone on to other projects - we have no doubts we'll be seeing more of them at Ammonite in the future

More photos can be found on our Facebook page

Giant Squid In Post

2011-09-12T09:41:00.002+01:00

Ammonite's film about the Giant Squid is now in the last stages of post-production and will be delivered to National Geographic in time to be show as part of Expedition Week this autumn.

Check our Facebook page and Twitter feeds for updates and get ready for an updated website later this year.

Ammonite Gets a Double First In Japan

2011-08-23T15:27:00.004+01:00

Ammonite has won the Technical Achievement Award at the Japan Wildlife Film Festival TWICE!!

Night of the Lion tied for fist place with City of Ants (the film formally titled Antzilla which won the prize at Missoula for best Scientific Content)

The sound of champagne corks popping continues in Ammonite HQ

Meeting With A Mola Mola

2011-07-13T17:09:00.006+01:00

The open ocean is blue and clear. It is vast. Rick Rosenthal has spent most of his life trying to discover its secrets and it was amazing to free dive with him into the abyss. As part of the ‘squid team’ in the Azores Rick was charged with filming sperm whales. They are the ‘witness’ in our story because they, unlike humans, have seen giant squid in their natural habitat. In the Azores about an 1/8th of the sperm whale diet by mass is estimated to be giant squid. In the days of whaling, before 1986, cut up sperm whales revealed their stomach contents and sometimes had giant squid inside. Rick set out to learn what the sperm whales knew.

Every day on the sea is different. As Rick has often told me, 'the sea has a switch and sometimes it is on, and sometimes it is off'. Days, costly days, can be spent finding nothing, 'you have to pay your dues,' says Rick. He did. In just a few days the weather cleared and we had series of amazing encounters.

One evening, about 25 miles out, we were just about to go back. Rick suggested I should use his kayak and go and see what we could find. Mario, Rick’s Azorean teammate, propelled the amazing craft, by a bicycle-like mechanism, which flaps rowing blades below. Soon we were jetting over the sea, a slight swell raising and lowering our vision of a whale as we silently (and most importantly without distress for the animal) came closer. But at over a hundred yards away we saw its tail (the 'fluke’) raise into the air – the sign that the game was up – it had dived and disappeared, perhaps a mile below. It was then that we saw the gigantic fin above the surface. Could it be a shark ? This was probably not the time to remember that the world record for the king of all sharks, a 41.2 foot great white, comes from exactly this spot.

Tentatively I held the camera over the side of the kayak – a good compromise between getting the shot and not getting eaten. Then there were shouts from Rick on the main boat that I didn’t understand at first, 'John, John, it’s a mola mola, get in, get in!' A mola mola or sunfish is an entirely peaceful creature and is found in all the world’s seas. It is a gigantic ocean traveler and often comes to the surface where it rolls around for a while in the sun, I presume. Time slowed down, now I was in the water inches away from one of the largest fishes in the sea, perhaps even the largest bony fish on Earth. This was a beautiful monster, weighing over a ton, quite a bit longer than me, and the world record is about 9 feet. It seemed to blink as its eye swiveled to spot me going past. I blinked back; who wouldn’t at meeting such a giant?

Rick, nearly twenty years my senior and twenty times as fit had dived off the boat and was beside me. He swam for a while by the gentle giant and filmed it as it quietly turned and plummeted into the dark below, to go who knows where?

Now we know we are in the right place, an ocean crossroads where the giants come. And we are paying our dues to see a giant squid.

This film will be showing during Expedition Week on National Geographic Channel in November this year watch it to see what other amazing encounters the crew have in the Azores

John Ruthven producer for the giant squid-hunting film, pictured above in our Azorean production office

Rick Rosenthal Filming For Ammonite

2011-07-11T18:41:00.006+01:00

Rick Rosenthal has just gone back to the US, he was with us in the Azores for two weeks and the experience was incredible.

Rick is an oceanographer and a legendary cinematogragrapher. Enthusiasm radiates from him as he talks about the life he has witnessed in the ocean. It is clear that the more he sees the more incredible and mysterious this underwater world is. Ammonite is concerned with filming the natural, uninhibited behaviour of animals and Rick has developed a way of filming that gets closer to marine life than most other people.

Using a motor boat to get far out to sea, Nounou the skipper lets down a microphone on a long underwater cable to listen in to the activity going on all around us, Nounou differentiates between the dolphins and whales and then works out how fast the whales are moving and in which direction. We are looking for large groups of whales including full grown males, these are the ones that will dive deep and swallow massive amounts of whatever is living down there – including quantities of giant squid.

The boat stops a considerable distance from some whales that are close to the ocean’s surface. Rick then lowers an inflatable kayak into the water and paddles over towards the animals, they see the kayak but the approach is quiet and non-threatening and the animal usually stays around, unbothered. When he is very close, if Rick feels that his presence is of no concern, he will get in the water, the animal might choose to swim away but often it simply continues to do whatever it was doing.

The footage from these trips is magical, we’ve seen a lot of whales but we’ve seen plenty of other interesting things too. At one point our producer John Ruthven was scared out of his skin when a large fin sticking out of the water looking remarkably like a large shark came very close to the kayak. On investigation this turned out to be the biggest Mola Mola (ocean sunfish) anybody had ever seen, these are deep sea creatures and comparatively rare. Rick and John got in the water and shot some fantastic footage of the strange animal as it swam around surveying them.

We’ve also discovered quite a lot of debris that has floated up from the depths, the remains of a whale’s dinner that has come to the surface, giving us a tantalising glimpse of what we might find when the Giant Cable is lowered down to 500 metres tonight.

The Guppster: More Modifications

2011-07-06T20:26:00.005+01:00

After the first dip in the water we realised that a wooden cradle that could hold the Guppster out of the water would make life a lot easier than trying to get it in and out of the boat.

We also realised that we had made this beast far too strong, it was pulling the boat down when in the water. So we have clipped it's wings, making it lighter and less powerful. The latest test went really well, now all we have to do is sort out the camera electronics.

More pics of the Guppster and crew are on Ammonite Film's Facebook page

Guppster Gets A Tattoo

2011-07-06T19:16:00.005+01:00

Luis Roque is an Azorean diver, boatman and an artist, he is working with Ammonite on our giant squid challenge and has given the Guppster a proper ocean-going tattoo.

The Guppster Gets Wet

2011-07-02T19:31:00.004+01:00

The Guppster has been through several incarnations, this is MK5 going into the water for the first time we needed to know several things;

would it stay upright?

could it withstand the current?

is the winding mechanism on the boat strong enough to support it?

The only problem we encountered was with the last question, the winding mechanism needed another day in the workshop and the whole system has been modified.

Tomorrow we will try the test again...

Photos of our first week in the Azores have been published on our Facebook page if you want to see more

The Giant Cable Arrives ...

2011-07-01T20:14:00.002+01:00

... and then what?

After several nail-biting days when the Giant Cable* appeared to be lost in transit, a lorry turned up and dumped it on our driveway.

The next problem was how to shift it somewhere useful, here's how we managed it.

*The Giant Cable is the lynchpin of our efforts to find the Giant Squid - without it we might as well go home.

Where Are We?

2011-06-29T23:49:00.001+01:00

We are in the Atlantic Ocean, on a volcanic pinnacle rising 3000 metres out of the Atlantic Ridge.

Apparently we are a long away, but it doesn't feel so, it's the sort of place that feels very familiar. Here on Faial potatoes, bananas and pineapples thrive,blue hydrangeas bloom abundantly in hedgerows and every sort of weather is a daily occurrence. Strange - but in a good way

Ammonite's Night Shift

2011-06-28T23:24:00.003+01:00

This was the scene at 4am last Friday morning at Heathrow airport.

We have now arrived in the Azores, the 500 metre cable that got lost has finally been delivered and we are in the process of adapting our boat, the Maikira.

News Flashes and photos are posted on our Facebook page.

This is the big one

2011-06-24T17:45:00.004+01:00

Dual colour camera sees dolphins on a dark night, lit only by their bioluminescent wakes

Now we’re off to find a giant squid. We’ve been planning and building for almost a year, dreaming for a decade. Are we ready?

Gupster 5 has been designed on the basis of the shortcomings of the previous 4. The cameras have been evolving for years, and the new dual colour system has proved it’s worth in Belize and Mexico - to film things no one has ever filmed before. Now we want it to show us things no one has seen before.

The underwater housings have been depth tested, the deep sea cable communicates with the recording computers. Our boat, the Makaira is waiting in the harbour for us to start rigging the cable support system. We’re as ready as we’ll ever be.

How Many Filmmakers Fit In A Cupboard?

2011-06-23T16:27:00.007+01:00

Last week the Southampton Oceanographic Centre appeared to be trying to enter the record books for the amount of people it could squeeze into one of it's small research labs; apart from all the tanks and microscopes in the cupboard-sized space, there were three camera people and a producer plus Charlotte Marcinko (pictured above) and Martha Valiadi who are working on aspects of bioluminescence in plankton at the Oceanographic Centre.

Charlotte and Martha have been extremely patient and helpful over the last few months while we have been trying to set this shoot up. Cultivating the plankton (Pyrocystis fusiformis)is a skilled feat, these animals are difficult to cultivate in the quantities that we need for filming.

We got the light show and an important sequence in our story of how important bioluminescence is to a marine ecosystem.

We will now make a giant step to the next phase of filming as we head for the Azores in our grand quest to find and film a giant squid.

Ammonite - An Endless Tea Party?

2011-06-20T17:43:00.007+01:00

James Wright is a budding cameraman(he's the one holding all the mugs in the photo); he offered his services to Ammonite for a few weeks in order to get some relevant work experience before setting off on an awfully big adventure. Before he leaves us at the end of this week, we thought we'd find out what he thinks are the worst things about working at Ammonite.

1 Making endless teas and coffees everyone wants something different.
2 Soldering after a few hours you’ll have a headache and hand cramp.
3 The walk to the post office
4 The commute in to Ammonite from Bath it can sometimes take an hour and a half.
5 Being on the outskirts of the action knowing you are involved but wishing you could be more so.

'Despite all of the above, I’ve really enjoyed everything I’ve been asked to do in the last 3 weeks and I wish the crew every bit of luck in the Azores.'

(Good luck to you too James, happy travels - ed.)

Why Are We So Interested In Bioluminescence?

2011-06-12T22:47:00.004+01:00

When Martin Dohrn first observed Bioluminescence he knew that he wanted to record and explore this amazing natural phenomenon. Thus began the story of Ammonite's incredible Starlight Cameras.

Early results were impressive but commissioners were far more interested in capturing the night life of land animals - until last year Ammonite's low-light camera stayed in the dry.

Last year National Geographic Channel laid down the challenge for us to find the Giant Squid, it was the opportunity we have been waiting for and we leapt at it.

To date, most of the deep sea exploration has been made using trawlers dragging nets or using noisy ROV's these haven't really yielded great results.

We knew that Ammonite's cameras could be the secret weapon in this search for the animal that has eluded all other expeditions. There have been so many difficulties; we have had to work out how to overcome the logistical problems of getting our camera deep enough into the ocean, how to keep it steady in the water and we needed to understand where and how to look for the giant squid. We have had enormous help from many scientists who have already spent their working lifetime trying to enrich our knowledge of life in the ocean, one of these scientific giants is Edie Widder, her TED talk is a great introduction to the wonders of bioluminescence and gives some idea of what we are trying to build on:

The Giant Cable

2011-06-01T12:30:00.005+01:00

The cable we took to Mexico last month was a baby compared to the one going to the Azores, this super-hi-tech beast weighs more than a pair of beefy men.

In order for this monster to travel safely Florian Bailhache made a special box on a pallet. The Giant Cable started it's journey to the Azores today where we will be lowering it into the deep ocean to help us look for the Giant Squid

Lynch For Lunch

2011-05-31T17:18:00.005+01:00

We have nearly finished another two films in our 'Nightstalkers' series.

John Lynch has arrived to record the narration, he whizzed in from London in time for lunch at Ammonite HQ - he is the one wearing a hat. Sitting next to John is Charlie who is spending the week doing work experience with us and Nisha who has joined us as an intern as part of her MA at Imperial College London.

That chap in the white t-shirt is Will, one of our digital maestros. The man behind Will (the one with eyebrows impressive enough to compete with John's) is Robbie, our editor on the bioluminescent film

From Oceans to Droplets

2011-05-24T16:16:00.004+01:00

The crew arrived back from Mexico, exhausted and thrilled by the sight of dolphin pods 'lit up like fireworks as they surfed through the bioluminescent ocean'.

We are now preparing to go to the other extreme, the mighty Sinclair Stammers is in our workshop putting together a combination of macro kit and the ammonite red/blue camera system to see if we can work out an effective way to film bioluminescent dinoflagellates in a south coast university next month.

Is No News Good News?

2011-05-11T14:44:00.003+01:00

Our Mexican shoot was a difficult one to get off, lots of last-minute engineering and wrestling with cables. Packing took a whole week went on until four hours before setting off to the airport.

There will always be issues with US customs, in Detroit the crew had several hours interrogation resulting in missing the onward connection. Just to make sure we weren't hiding Bin Laden (or his body) the big cable was all pulled out and the cable ties cut so an untidy mass greeted the crew in Mexico, on top of the delayed flight we had to take a day to test the cable and make sure nothing had been damaged.

The crew are now happy settled in Cap'n Ron's boat, filming in the Sea of Cortez. Now they're afloat we have no communications available so we'll have to wait until the crew return before we can post any more about this one.

We have heard that the visibility hasn't been great, reports of dolphins swimming through the luminescent water sound amazing. There should be Humboldt Squid and Lantern Fish which we are hoping we can film using the new equipment.

Meet The Guppster

2011-05-02T17:42:00.005+01:00

This is the mechanism that we are using in the ocean to carry our cameras as steadily as possible while we try and film underwater at depth. Many prototypes have been made and tested. You might remember this post when John Ruthven made a model from a children's construction kit. Since then there has been a half-sized aluminium version which we tested in Belize and now we have our full size steel Guppycam or 'The Guppster' as it has become affectionately known.

The Guppster will be tried out in Mexico over the next few days where we hope to find some Lantern fish and then we hope any final modifications will be made to enable it to be used in the Atlantic over the summer.

Weight Loss

2011-04-28T18:10:00.008+01:00

A single piece of baggage, airline weight restriction = 30kg.

A specially commissioned cable full of fibre optics has just arrived.

On it's wooden spool it weighs 38kg.

John has been trying to lose some weight.

Caught Catnapping

2011-04-23T13:32:00.005+01:00

The man who wins this weeks prize for Most-All-Round-Brilliant-Person currently working at Ammonite is Howard Bourne who discovered this snoozing puma yesterday afternoon while trying out one of his latest camera-on-a-dolly combinations

The Dome Has Landed

2011-04-15T14:43:00.003+01:00

Excuse us swerving away from Costa Rica so suddenly but we are very excited about the latest arrival in our workshop.

This is a device that will help us find bioluminescent marine animals. It doesn't look very dom-ey but the dome at the end of this glass housing is so highly polished it has become vitually invisible. This item has been specially made for us and will contain a camera and withstand being put deep down into the ocean.

More Pumas

2011-04-11T17:07:00.002+01:00

Great news from the field in Costa Rica - the cable is now working really well and among the fantastic material that we are getting from our night cameras is more from the puma. We'll try to get more stills to show you soon.

Traps and Remotes

2011-03-31T04:46:00.002+01:00

Luckily, we have a plethora of cameras at our disposal, so while the repair work is being done on the cable dolly we are busy with trap cameras and remote-controlled cameras as well as using the starlight and thermal cameras in a more conventional way.

The trap cameras have given us some great results, and we've seen a huge variety of animals,agoutis are particularly star-struck and spend a lot of time in front of the cameras but the puma pictured here likes to strut her stuff in front of the lens too.

Everything Was Going So Well ...

2011-03-27T17:52:00.004+01:00

... then disaster struck.

After two nights of everything working smoothly, night cameras gliding above the forest on the cables, maybe we relaxed a little.

At 4am this morning the night crew came back to base needing help to rescue the starlight camera, the electronics had ceased working and the whole camera/dolly caboodle were stuck in a tree at the far end of the cable. We had to get to it and turn it off before dawn or the intensifiers would be damaged.

The turning off was achieved but untangling the mess of wires and machinery was a whole other business involving 6 hours. The pieces have been brought back for fixing and a post-mortem.

Drying Out

2011-03-25T20:22:00.003Z

Temperatures are climbing, the forest is drying out and the leaves are falling from the trees giving us a clear view down to the forest floor. Finally we have got the camera operating on the cable dolly

Here is Jim Campbell-Spickler, a rope and climbing specialist from California, checking our cables before the launch.

Howard Finds Fans

2011-03-25T02:24:00.004Z

Our electronics problems have been partially due to overheating. Today, the amazing Howard Bourne* cannibalised some redundant computers that he found in the Santa Rosa National Park Offices (they really didn't need them any more did they? - ed) and re-installing the ex-computer fans in the camera casing.

*Howard is powered by pineapple, he ate his way through 10 while solving the fan problem

Good News And Bad News

2011-03-22T21:12:00.003Z

The good news is that Justine Evans has arrived* she has been out setting camera traps with the jaguar researcher Luis Fonseca Lopez who is working in the National Park.

The less good news is that we are encountering a lot of problems. Initially it was mainly mechanical problems with the remote-controlled cameras that we were working to overcome, but then catastrophe struck; you may remember that two crews came out in January and February to stretch a pair of cables high over the forest canopy so we could send dollies along them. It is very windy in the park and we had not accounted for the amount of loosening that would happening. Two days ago one of our cables collapsed and then the other one followed suit. We have spent the last two days pulling the cables back up and reinforcing our systems.

Despite the fact that filming has been hindered we have still got some very exciting footage of pumas and some extremely charming shots of tapirs.

We're hoping to send the overhead cameras out for a proper run tonight - cross your fingers for us please!

*camera woman par excellence.

Happy Birthday Santa Rosa

2011-03-20T21:24:00.007Z

This is Ammonite's 6th project in the Santa Rosa National Park of Costa Rica. Our first visit here was in 1994.

Today Santa Rosa celebrates 40 years of existence, the park was established on the same date as a battle fought in 1856 - an epic battle that lasted all of fifteen minutes when troops of filibusters sent by William Walker, were surprised and repelled by the strength and bravery of the Tico troops. The historic value of this battle led directly to the establishment of Santa Rosa as a protected area.

Today's celebrations included two bands, lots of schoolchildren, dancing, speeches, some great music and a historical re-enactment of the famous battle.

* William Walker had at this point set himself up as President of Nicaragua, conducted fraudulent elections and launched Americanization programs which involved making every one speak English and reinstating slavery. Follow this link for more on this charming man

The Glamour Never Stops

2011-03-18T23:29:00.019Z

As usual the Ammonite crew is located in sumptuous accommodation;

Our luxury kitchen benefits from flow-thru air conditioning and a resident teasmaid - this one even has an en suite bathroom

All rooms are multi-functional, here is a combined sleep/work space - this lucky occupant has a free room mate included in his special deal*

* snoring room mates an optional extra, please ask the sales team for availability

Laundry facilities provided in every room

Setting Up Home In The Tree House

2011-03-17T22:06:00.004Z

Earlier in the year a crew were in Costa Rica rigging up cables over the forest canopy. At one end of the cables we have built a sort of tree house, an operations centre where we will control the remote cameras that will zip along these cables.

Crews will be working shifts in this tree house which will be full of monitors, computers - and our specially made detection devices. Before they start we have to kit it out with a worktop and chairs so they can make themselves comfy for the duration.

This is harder than one might imagine, furniture is quite expensive in Costa Rica, there are no secondhand stores near us and what furniture is available is not ideally suited to being hauled up through a gap in the floor.

We are going to make what we need ourselves, the photo shows Nick loading his atv with timber ready to assemble his workstation in situ.

Packed For Costa Rica

2011-03-13T08:58:00.003Z

We've lost count of how many cases are going this time ... a lot.

The crew set off for Costa Rica in a few hours - will we see jaguars?

Fire Fighting At Ammonite

2011-03-13T08:48:00.003Z

Three Ways Fire Prevention Services came to teach us how to be fire wardens, the extinguisher training was tackled with gusto:

Will - he's fighting the Dark Forces

Tom - getting in a lather

Laura - business-like as usual

Ostracod Spotting

2011-03-06T23:30:00.007Z

We are in Belize filming bioluminescent marine creatures. The bit of Belize where we are doing this is an hour’s bumpy ride on a boat from Dangriga to South Water Caye, an island which measures about the size of a cruise ship. The lodge where we are staying and working is also a marine biology study centre. Professor Jim Morin is working with us and has set up a laboratory there so we can film the work that he is doing with bioluminescent animals.

One especially astonishing creature that he is studying is a bioluminescent Ostracod, an animal the size of a sesame seed which has the capacity to set itself ablaze in blue light in order to attract a girlfriend.

Every night after a full moon an extraordinary spectacle takes place; one night Jim took us to the marine mating grounds where we waited in the boat until sunset, then we slipped into the water and waited for the light show.

The beautiful prelude to ostracod action is the dance of the female marine worms who rise to the water’s surface spraying out their eggs in a mass of green light attracting hundreds of males who rush over to fertilise them, the water fizzes with action, it's like watching hundreds of tiny catherine wheels going off all over the water.

Ten minutes after the worms have got going, the ostracods start swimming upwards, slowly at first, we just see the odd line of vertical lights coming up among the corals and seaweeds, moving gently in the current. Each male ostracod gives off four dots to signal their presence to any females who might be around, then the lights become more and more until the water is pulsating with wavy lines of vertical blue dots all moving upwards.

Just when the water seems already full of light, the horizontal swimmers start, their trails of blue light spots fan out laterally, soon the ocean becomes an intense trippy matrix, it's mesmerising. Finally the lights fade away and we come up out of the water to make our way home, the night sky is indigo and massed with stars, we sit quietly in the boat on the way home because we can’t quite believe what we saw.

If you click on the Facebook button on the right you'll find an album of photos from Belize.

Emergency Supplies

2011-02-23T11:54:00.003Z

I think there's a law that says 'if something can go wrong it will' - some crucial bits of metal got left behind in the packing room and are now heading with a personal courier to deliver them as fast as possible. The route to the island off Belize is long and once the two main plane journeys are completed there is a long bus ride and then a boat journey, it's a two-dayer.

Once there, there is no internet and very little electricity - paradise for those on holiday but when trying to arrange delivery of spare parts it gets problematic.

The good news is that this place is perfect for our filming, while waiting for the parts to arrive the crew have been filming in the ocean at night and our cameras and the sea life are behaving perfectly.

We are working in Belize with a scientist (more about him later) and the next phase of filming will involve a bit of work in a laboratory.

No more news from here for about a week, but hopefully there will soon be some pictures to show you.

Testing, Testing Squidcam

2011-02-15T17:44:00.009Z

The Amazing Bioluminescence Film has been in pre-production for months. First we had to try and anticipate conditions that might occur at sea, then we constructed scaled-down models of the kit that we intended to make. The last phase is trying the models out in our testing tanks where we recreated an ocean in miniature.

One of the creatures that we are hoping to encounter on this odyssey is a giant squid and we have worked out a system for lowering a camera into the ocean from the deck of a boat. The camera will be connected to a computer back on deck and this gives us more problems to overcome along with issues of drag, turbulance and the possibility that the squid might appear but not exactly in the right spot.

Here is John Ruthven demonstrating a prototype model made of parts supplied by his children

The sound on this is not very clear so here’s a rough transcript:

John: We’ve got this attached to a computer - and once it’s attached to a computer, the bit that’s turning can’t be let in and out because it goes round and round and would turn the whole computer and it’s assembly would be going round and round as well.

So given that we can’t do that, we’ll have to put some slack on deck and carefully play it out.

And the thought is, that as we can see the image, say there was a squid here, that was slightly too high we could pull it up so we could see the squid (device spins) - hopefully it won’t rotate like that either, the fins should stabilise it.

What you can get in the water is jogging like that so we’ve got to stop that too.

The other issues is that most sea captains are not terribly happy when they’ve got 500 metres of cable dangling off the back of their ships and they’re near rocks and they need to manouvre

The Amazing Bioluminescence Film Begins

2011-02-09T11:42:00.005Z

The Ammonite Testing Team has just returned from making the first mini-test-shoot for a brand new project and Ammonite’s 8th version of the starlight camera is producing some very extraordinary images.

Vieques, a small Island off the coast of Puerto Rico in the Caribbean has the perfect place - a lagoon that is so packed with tiny bioluminescent creatures that just touching the water makes it flash brightly. For fish trying to keep a low profile, it’s a nightmare - but it's magical for humans. The light is too dim for normal cameras, but Ammonite’s latest starlight camera can capture the spectacle in colour.

This unique place is surely one of the 7 wonders of the Earth - but not for much longer unless the Puerto Ricans tackle light pollution and excessive human traffic

Good News From The Camera Boy

2011-02-07T15:58:00.002Z

Hey Guys!

2 cables are up and the tower is built like a brick shithouse - I can't make it wobble any more (which is good!). Caught an ocelot on trapcam last night, about 50 metres from dormitories :-) I've attached a pic of cables as requested

Cheers,
Howard

Notes From Our Very Own Superhero

2011-02-04T17:05:00.012Z

For the last week a crack team has been working away in a very bitey-insect-infested part of Costa Rica to finish building the filming tower and rigging the dolly-sliding cables across the forest. The project has been fraught with problems, as you may already know from previous posts, the first attempt did not go well.

We have been getting regular progress reports about this latest activity from our Superhero-in-Chief Max Mackay:

01/02/2011
To: Ammonite HQ
Subject: Re: Costa Rica Tower

Hi Everyone,

Re cables. We have to take them up to full tension over the tower now. Failure to do that will mean finding those problems during filming time. Also the noise would be disruptive to the critters and that was really the point of getting out here to do it early. On the good side we saw deer and peccary today.

So the pressure is on and it's big damn hero time for us all tomorrow. Basically if we have a great day we get to strut around in tight fitting costumes with our underwear outside our trousers. If we don't,......., well, with that incentive we just can't fail.

Buenos noches.
Max

02/02/2011
To: Ammonite HQ
Subject: Re: Costa Rica Tower

Hi Everyone,

The wobble factor of the tower is down from a massive sway scaring everone who goes on it to a significant small wobble but I have high hopes that it will improve still further with tomorrows bracing.

So there you go. Not so much leaping tall buildings in a single bound as stepping over small obstacles in a dainty yet manly fashion.

Kind regards
Duncan (Max) McKay

03/02/2011
To: Ammonite HQ
Subject: Re: Costa Rica Tower

Greetings once again from the land of many stars. The story of the day goes like this :-

Tower wobble stopped. Stop.

First 9mm cable secured over valley and on tower. Stop.

Second cable anticipated installed tomorrow. Stop.

Much dancing in underwear. Must stop.

Yours very sincerely
Duncan (Max) McKay

04/02/2011
To: Ammonite HQ
Subject: Lines and lines and lines

Dear all,

Having a positively spiffing time. Weather here top notch and the insects are delectably bitey.

Both lines are in, tensioned up and high as we can go. The tower is complete and not moving. Woohoo!

Cable 1 run sucks as it sits on trees over the entire bottom end but cable 2 is a real winner, sailing clear over the canopy.

We will be clearing out local branches tomorrow as best we can in advance of the dolly.

Hero pants firmly ensconced.

Sweet dreams
Duncan (Max) McKay

Cables Vs Trees

2011-01-30T21:36:00.005Z

We knew this wasn’t going to be easy - so we shouldn’t be surprised that our first attempt at getting the cables across the forest wasn’t entirely successful. The problem is simple; cables, string and forests don’t mix. But then if it was easy, everyone would be doing it (or so we keep telling ourselves).

After two weeks of struggling we had to leave the cabling unfinished because we had booked another trip to go and test some new cameras in the bioluminescent waters of the Caribbean (more about that project to come). A second crew is on it's way to Costa Rica to pick up where we left off, strengthening the cable platform and finish threading the cables - and then the forest can return to normal before the filming starts in March.

Cascavel

2011-01-25T08:08:00.002Z

Costa Rica is well known for having a rich variety of venomous snakes. Among the most famous / infamous is the rattle-less rattlesnake, the cascavel

Apparently common in the Guanacaste region of Costa Rica, this much feared snake is hardly ever actually seen. To find a beautiful specimen next to the cable platform we are building was a pleasant surprise - er - but a bit of a worry for the night watchman.

Using a couple of long sticks, we gently tried to persuade the snake to move on. The snake was calm and at first reluctant to move. Eventually we escorted it 50 metres down the hill, during which time, it didn’t strike once.

The next morning, the night watchman told us that as soon as we had gone, the snake simply returned to where we had first found it. Interesting

Meet Kathy Lee

2011-01-20T14:57:00.011Z

This is Kathy Lee: photo by Fernando Campos

20 years ago I made my first film in Santa Rosa, Costa Rica, it was about Coatis but while making this film with Joel Seanz of the University of Heredia, I also met some dedicated scientists studying the resident monkey population - the Monkey People. At that time they were Linda Fedigan, Katie Mackinnon and Lisa Rose. The Monkey People told me about their study of various groups of white-faced capuchins in Santa Rosa and described fascinating stories of the forest.

To help describe the different monkeys, they give them all names - one little female, born in 1989 was called Kathy Lee

Six years later I returned to make my second film here, Lisa Rose was still there, trudging the forest trails and that's when I was introduced to Kathy Lee, just entering adulthood she was notable for her maleness and would often go squirrel-hunting with the boys. Her first attempts at sex play would result in her mounting a (confused) male.

Another two years went by and I was back to make my third film, this one about monkeys*, I was helped immeasurably by the Monkey People; Lisa Rose, Kathy Jack and Barbara Welker.

I was happy to see that Kathy Lee was now a mother.

Last week, I was back in Santa Rosa, the Monkey People have changed again, this time Claire Sheller and Mackenzie Bergstrom took me to meet the monkeys.

Guess who was the first monkey that I saw? Yup! it was Kathy Lee, now the alpha female and having a massive argument with the only mature male of the group, Cayenne.

Mackenzie had been the one watching the monkeys and had noticed that Cayenne had been having a bad day for a monkey: Firstly, at dawn, he failed to notice a puma under the sleeping tree. The puma followed the monkeys as they set off to forage.

If you're a male white-faced capuchin, your job is to look out for predators and warn the group. Cayenne failed badly. Perhaps that’s why Kathy Lee was so upset with him. He also later stole a grasshopper from her by biting her hand, and now Kathy Lee was really mad, gathering the whole group to threaten and shout at Cayenne. Not a proud moment in his career as an alpha male, but for me it was really nice to see Kathy Lee, now a grandmother - still feisty after all these years.

I suspect Cayenne’s tenure as alpha male is nearly over.

Martin Dohrn
*3 monkeys(BBC Natural World / Discovery)

Ticks and Vampires

2011-01-16T15:47:00.002Z

Ticks. Yuck. Among the most unpleasant of all the bloodsuckers - they make mosquitos look like angels.

We are being plastered in ticks as we stumble through thick viney forest looking for the thin yellow lines left by the crossbow arrows. Eventually these lines will all be joined and we’ll be able to start the long process of pulling the big cable across the valley. If the ticks don’t suck all our blood before we can finish the job.

The presence of so many ticks isn’t as bad as it seems. It means there are plenty of animals around - which means that there will be predators such as the dry forest cats; jaguars, pumas, ocelots, margays and jaguarundis - one of the crew even saw a puma yesterday.

On the other hand, the vampire bats are missing. In a place where a year ago we filmed vampires sneaking up on deer with the thermal camera, now there are none. An evening’s wait revealed no more than a mouse and two rabbits (which of course in their own way are just as interesting.)

How To Fling Something Far: Plan B

2011-01-11T23:33:00.005Z

The Crossbow Method:
The crew have arrived and discovered most things ready to go. There is a slight problem in that the trees are still leafy. We expected the dry season to be well under way by now but we are hoping that by the time we start filming the leaves will have detached themselves to give the camera a clear view through the trees to the ground below ... if we can get the cable up...

Some time was spent on catapult-making but that idea didn't really work out.

Luckily, We also took some crossbows with us to Costa Rica, one of the crew had the idea that we could shoot thinnish line across the trees and use that to draw a heavier cable through - this method is showing promise.

Night of the Hunt showing in USA

2011-01-07T23:44:00.002Z

If you haven't already caught it, Night of the Hunt is showing on the National Geographic Channel in the US at the moment - next airing on Sunday.

How To Fling Something Far: Plan A

2011-01-07T12:03:00.005Z

We have been racking our brains on the subject of how to get a very long cable across the top of the forest.

Plan A involves putting a camera boy attached to one end of the cable in the flinging bit of a big catapult

Bracing Ourselves

2011-01-02T14:36:00.004Z

Ammonite has been busy preparing for the next trip to Costa Rica where among other things we are hoping to film jaguars. We have discussed many cunning plans for this project, jaguars are notoriously good at hiding. One of our schemes is to thread an immensely long cable through the forest and hoist it up above the canopy between two points so that various bits of kit can be set up to glide above the trees (a sort of death-slide for cameras), giving us a monkey’s eye view of the action taking place on the forest floor.

How will we achieve this very difficult task?

We're not quite sure yet - but we have sketched out some ideas that we will be telling you about, meanwhile if you have any brainwaves please let us know.

Happy Christmas Everyone

2010-12-24T13:56:00.002Z

This was the face of Ammonite this morning, some of us went on to do a bit of all night dancing - a full album of the evening's activities are available on our Facebook page.

Have a great Christmas everyone - some sort of service will resume early in 2011

Love from Ammonite xxxxx

Getting In Training For Costa Rica

2010-12-20T14:46:00.004Z

Ammonite will shortly be embarking on a search for the elusive jaguar. The first trip sets off next month, they are heading into inaccessible territory and one of the many challenges will be how to thread a cable high up through a large section of forest.

Part of the preparations involved a weekend recently with MTF, where Ian Shacklock taught the crew how to use an All Terrain Vehicle safely. That's Howard Bourne with the proof that he passed the course with flying colours

The Edit Marathon Begins

2010-12-08T14:48:00.003Z

The indomitable Jimmy Taggart is back at Ammonite - currently turning reams of hyena footage into pure spun gold.... next up leopards!

Ammonite Loose In The Country

2010-11-25T17:49:00.003Z

An Ammonite crew drove out east to meet Paul and Ryan Edwards yesterday. These two talented young cameramen have been filming the barn owls that live near their Suffolk home. If you are in the UK, catch Autumnwatch tonight on BBC2 at 8.30 to see what they've been up to.

Ants In Their Pants

2010-11-18T09:47:00.002Z

Ants can be a pain - apparently

Hitting The Headlines

2010-11-11T08:09:00.002Z

Martin Dohrn's stunning starlight images can be seen in online versions of Metro and The Daily Telegraph, they're also in today's Daily Mail,

Regal Monarchs

2010-11-07T12:40:00.005Z

Ammonite sent a crew to Mexico and Wisconsin last March to film Monarch butterflies for the National Geographic series Great Migrations - it's finally on telly.

Ammonite Goes To Hollywood

2010-11-03T13:58:00.005Z

It's finally ready and winging its way over the pond to star in a Hollywood feature film alongside a raft of Oscar winners...

For weeks we've been preparing a custom starlight rig for a super-sensitive, Mega-A-list film, an undercover operation so ultra-secret that if we reveal any names, large black-suited men will take us away and feed us to their pet piranhas.

Does My Bum Look Big In This?

2010-10-28T17:57:00.001+01:00

The filming crew went back to Kenya three weeks ago and we haven't heard from them since - not so much as a tweet.

We hope the silence means that they are so busy filming exciting things (warthogs eating lions, crocodiles dancing on ice...) that they haven't the time to talk to us. They're supposed to be getting back at the weekend so we'll be posting news of the latest trip when we see the rushes.

Meanwhile the crew that stayed in the office got down to some needle craft - this is Elliot and Laura turning a baby-carrying backback into a computer-carrying backpack for the next field trip.

Settling Down

2010-10-11T21:05:00.010+01:00

Still working out where to put everything but we're getting used to our new home...

The filming crew are all back home and the whole team are together for a brief week before the next leg of filming starts. While the boys were away, the home of Ammonite was moved from it's rather cramped quarters in Cotham to a fantastic building designed by one of the world's most astonishing men Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

The building has been neglected over recent decades this summer our offices looked a bit like this

and there was quite a lot of work to do to achieve first this

and then this

It's been an amazing project: in an attempt to be as green as possible our furniture and fittings have all come from salvaged/recycled/reclaimed sources with a minimal use of new timber. Planted right next to the railway station we will be arriving for work by bike, train, bus and Shank's pony and hoping that our visitors will do likewise. But most of all this is the most beautiful place to be, we're hoping that the spirit of one of the world's greatest inventors will inspire Ammonite to design equipment that will lead us to uncover even more of the wonders of the natural world ...

It's A Wrap In Yala

2010-10-08T16:24:00.004+01:00

The Sri Lankan team finished filming in Sri Lanka. They have packed up and just arrived home with several drives stuffed full of the most extraordinary footage of leopards, sloth bears, crocodiles, elephants and a whole lot more from this beautiful country. We'll be spending the next few months editing the material and meanwhile the shooting in Africa continues, expect more news from the Masai Mara soon...

Monsoon So Soon

2010-10-02T07:54:00.003+01:00

As we approach our final days of filming here in Sri Lanka we've entered the start of the monsoon rains. We came to film at the peak of the drought when we had the best chance of filming leopards and we've not been disappointed. After two and a half weeks of blistering sunshine the clouds have been building over the park. Finally they gave way with an enormous thunderstorm and several inches of rain. Good news for the wildlife but not so great for a car full of computers and and car batteries.

We spent last night parked by a waterhole filming crocodiles in a torrential downpour that lasted hours. Our car is protected by some rudimentary plastic sheeting that when combined with almost 100% humidity becomes more like a mobile steam room. We did the best we could to film through the rain but nothing prepared Howard or I for the mind blowing curry the chefs had prepared for our dinner. Already sweltering in the car the kitchen staff have been ever increasing the heat of our evening meals. The result was an inevitable near paralytic meltdown of embarrassing proportions. Further fuel was thrown on the curry fire by our smiling driver encouraging us to drink hot chai to relieve the burn. Much to the amusement of our local trackers and driver it only added to the curry carnage and halted filming until our senses were in some way restored.

With only a few nights remaining we're hoping the rain holds off just a few more days but with black clouds overhead it seems unlikely. The monsoon has come and soon it will be time to pack up and leave this amazing place to replenish for next year.

Rhino Ridge

2010-09-29T07:07:00.002+01:00

Rhino on Rhino Ridge

Rhino Ridge is hardly a ridge, more a huge gentle hill sitting between the northern boundary of the Mara reserve and the valley carved by the Mara river as it flows south then east towards Tanzania. The 'ridge' got its name for the fact that once it was a good place to see (and previously to hunt) rhino. Twenty years ago, I saw one there, shortly before a Mara ranger was arrested for colluding in the killing of one of the eight remaining rhinos in the Mara - and thereafter Rhinos were presumed more or less extinct in the Mara as a result of poaching for their horn.

Two days ago, there was a rhino strolling nonchanantly across the top of Rhino Ridge after an absence of twenty years Incredulous topi and zebra, who may have never seen a rhino before, watched. Nobody seems to know how many rhino there are in the Mara today (-or they’re not saying), but last night we saw yet another wandering around among Maasai villages in the dead of night, a hopeful sign that rhinos really are returning.

Grass

2010-09-23T14:29:00.004+01:00

Tasting the grass

It’s all about grass. The reason the wildebeest are here (the Maasai Mara)
is because of the grass. The combination of soil, grazing patterns and rainfrall
have now carpeted huge areas with short neatly clipped, emerald green
grass, a lawn that any Englishman would be proud of. This is
exactly the kind of nutritious sward that the wildebeest like - and they
are now here in greater numbers than ever.

Do wildebeest like the taste of grass and savour the differences in
flavour between the different species? Do they live for the taste of
fresh, green shoots? Perhaps, but a taste test revealed that our tiny
(compared to a wildebeest) taste and smell receptors can't tell one kind
of grass from another - and that humans aren't really that keen on the taste of
grass.

Tank, Brick and Bison

2010-09-23T14:23:00.003+01:00

Billie and Ben playing

Giving the animals names could be seen as frivolous and unnecessarily anthropomorphising them. But without giving them names, we have difficulty understanding who's who, and in a complex society like that of hyenas, we need to be able to describe individuals with a quick shorthand - names.

There's one who likes to rip the cables off the front of the car (he's called Cable Biter), and youngster who whines a lot at feeding time (you guessed it, Whiner) - probably because his mother is cutting off his milk supply.

But there are unforgettable hyenas who's stature and demeanour inspire names like Tank, Brick, and in the clan we are following now, Bison. These are the matriarchs of the clan, mothers and grandmothers to quite a few of the females in the clan. As they rarely need to hunt they have been able to dispense with the usual lithe and fast hyena bodies for sheer bulk and muscle. They are the huge testosterone filled monsters, who have created in observers the mistaken impression that the (smaller) male hyenas have only low status in the clan (as they have lower testosterone counts and do sometimes get beaten up).

Today, we witnessed Billie and Ben romping about playing, chasing and generally jumping on each other despite the fact that they are adults - in Ben's case, and probably almost so in Billie's case. Billie was trying to excavate a burrow, presumably in readiness for the time she will give birth (clearly not yet). Meanwhile, Ben was acting as sentinel, while also trying to mate as she was digging. He didn't seem serious, and she seemed to be enjoying the attention. We watched and filmed for an hour as they romped across the plains. What energy - but no sign of dominating behaviour from Billie. Perhaps in another 10 years or so, Billie will become like her grandmother - and need another name should we ever meet her again. 'Hulk' perhaps.

Raining Leopards

2010-09-22T20:20:00.002+01:00

We were just getting set to leave this evening when the sky’s opened and it started to pour with rain. Apparently it’s the dry season here but after a scorching day the thunderclouds built up and the storm started. Our car is now protected with a combination of plastic sheeting and bin liners against the torrential elements.

We’re working double night shifts at the moment in an attempt to outfox the leopards and possibly film one hunting. Very few people have ever seen a leopard make a kill here but no one has really driven in the park at night, let alone observe the leopards. After 5 weeks of filming we think that they may be making their kills in the early hours of the morning.

So for the past 3 days we’ve set our alarm clocks for 3am and headed off into the park. After 6 hours or so we return to refuel with a largely waffle-filled breakfast and plenty of coffee. Then after downloading our footage 3pm rolls around and we head out again for another 6 hours. It’s a rather strange (and painful) time scale to work in but you can’t argue with the results, we’ve found leopards every day but sadly we’re still waiting to catch an elusive hunt. Who knows, if it ever stops raining we might just film one!

Leopard Family Life

2010-09-19T07:00:00.008+01:00

Last night was an absolute highlight of our filming in Sri Lanka so far. We are now on our second leg of night filming leopards and last night we found an adult male, 2 cubs and their mother all taking it in turns to feed on a kill. It was amazing to see this giant male playfully ignore the relentless gnawing of his tail by a very persistent cub.

The males here are some of the largest leopards in the world and absolutely dwarf the adult females let alone foolhardy cubs. But last night we filmed this incredible family share some very rare quality time. It has been observed in the past that males do occasionally socialise with their own cubs but has it ever been filmed? We're not sure, so rather than declare a world first we're just thrilled to have documented such an amazing interaction. We're off filming crocodiles now so best filming trousers, cake safely stowed (and bug spray) and getting loading that night car.

report via: Tom (Cake Boy) Stephens

Too Many Gnus Are Spoiling the Broth

2010-09-18T22:11:00.005+01:00

The only gnus coming through from Africa is in truncated phone calls as their email links aren't working. From Ammonite HQ we can report that there are unprecedented numbers of wildebeest on the Mara plains this year.

We are currently filming for two projects in the Mara; one is about hyenas and they have been performing marvelously, however the crocodiles that the crew are trying to film for the other project have scoffed so many wildebeest that they are bloated and sleepy and are lying around in a state of torpor.

However Tom (cake boy) Stephens has a great internet connection and has taken some stunning images of leopards which will be posted very soon.

Hyena PR

2010-09-05T23:01:00.002+01:00

When the public relations skills were handed out to the animals, the hyenas must have been somewhere else - and the lions got the hyena share of human popularity.

Male lions, despite usually being greedy thieving thugs, have lovely long manes and charismatic looks. They inspire awe and respect among humans. Male hyenas on the other hand, are often seen wallowing in mud, or the excrement of other animals, perhaps hanging round lions as they feed, apparently hoping for scraps left by the king of beasts. The male hyena has a reputation for cowardice and submission in front of the more powerful females.

But if you look closely at the hyenas surrounding lions on a kill (for real or on TV), you will quite likely see one with blood on his neck - certainly the animal that made the kill - a hyena and not a lion.

Many people now realise that the truth about hyenas differs from the way they have been portrayed in the media. Night filming is helping us uncover more of what hyenas, and male hyenas in particular, really do.

The male hyenas do the bulk of the hunting - the feeding of the clan. They are faster and lighter than the bulky females, and can as a group out-run and bring down almost any animal they choose, healthy or not. At night it seems that hyenas are almost completely predatory, hardly bothering with carrion, while lions will steal a significant proportion of hyena kills.

The male hyenas do seem to get a raw deal. But in reality, they are valued members of the clan, acting as baby sitters at the den, giving support and reassurance to youngsters, making kills for suckling females, and generally acting as a mobile security network keeping the boundaries of the clan territory intact. And when lions threaten it's the males who dart around the lions, harrying them, getting them to run and tire, while the powerful testosterone filled females have the serious muscle ready
just in case.

Good Gnus From The Masai Mara

2010-08-26T21:39:00.001+01:00

After an extremely busy time between here and the leopard shoot in Sri Lanka, there's finally time to write.

Arriving here a week ago, we were told that the wildebeest (gnu) migration had already returned to Tanzania a few weeks early. Although this wasn't crucial to the two films we are making here (crocodiles and hyenas) it is always disappointing to arrive at a party when everyone's gone home. There were a few herds about, but generally things were looking a bit empty.

Then, we had two days of rain and the herds piled back across the Mara River to cover the plains. It is an astounding sight, wildebeest as far as the eye can see in all directions. This scale of this spectacle never ceases to amaze me, but also saddens me to remember that until quite recently, Europe, North America, Asia, India, other parts of Africa all had similar concentrations of wildlife which have all but disappeared.

Stop Press: Transmission News

2010-08-24T11:38:00.005+01:00

We have transmission news for the lion film that we made last year.

The film will be known as Night of the Hunt in the US and Night Of The Lion elsewhere (don't ask...)

The first transmission will be at 9pm on the 13th September on Nat Geo Wild in the UK and the rest of Europe*, for photos and a lovely trailer see the Night of The Lion website.

Night of the Lion is the first of a series of films featuring nocturnal activity. Currently in production are films discovering the nocturnal behaviour of leopards, hyenas and crocodiles.

Rescheduling

2010-08-22T01:11:00.003+01:00

The wonderful thing about filming in a new place is that there is so much to learn...

The problem with filming in a new place is that there is so much to learn...

No matter how much research we do before we start filming, it's only when we actually get there, start filming and meet people who know the place well, then we start to get a real idea of the relationships between the animals and the landscape and how the seasons affect the whole ecosystem.

Our original plan had been to film the start of the dry season, then go back next year for the rains. Then we realised that the end of the dry season would be a time of much more interesting behaviour (in terms of the film we want to make), so we have changed all our plans around.

This is by way of an explanation for the lack of notes from the field - we've been in a frenzy of rescheduling. We all flew back to the UK to get kit cleaned, repaired and repacked. One crew is now filming hyenas in Africa - they have no internet, no phones and no electricity - no news from there yet. The other crew are scrambling together the necessary equipment to go back out to Sri lanka in three weeks time.

Flashy Geezer

2010-08-16T07:30:00.005+01:00

Although this is supposed to be a leopard shoot, we couldn't resist taking photographs of some very interesting ants. Their shiny bodies are quite difficult to photograph, a modified flash is needed - here is Martin's ingenious diffuser involving twigs and an old plastic shopping bag.

Project leopard Commences

2010-08-11T08:23:00.001+01:00

Chitral Jayatillake and Wari Illangasinghe from the John Keells Hotels Group with the first recipient of a leopard-proof cage.

The large animals that inhabit national parks might be great for a country's tourist industry (and marauding filmmakers), but for many of the people who live in the vicinity of the parks these animals can pose a considerable threat to their livelihoods. Around Yala National Park there have been several leopard attacks on local cattle herds and last year alone four or five leopards are known to have been killed by either the villagers or poachers in the area around Yala.

John Keells Hotel Group, which owns hotels near Sri Lanka's National Parks and organises wildlife safaris has recently embarked on Project Leopard, a scheme that will be giving local farmers several portable leopard-proof cages to protect the calves at night.

The first of these cages was handed over to a local farmer last week and we went along to film the event.

So Much To Tell ...

2010-08-02T13:11:00.004+01:00

... we've filmed leopard liaisons, jocular jackals, beautiful birds, creepy crocodiles and food fighting, we've witnessed the donation of cattle-protecting cages and we've made some great sound recordings, none of which we can share yet because the internet connection doesn't work much - and we have to go even further into the jungle; notes from the field will continue in a week or so when communication permits.

Climb Every Mountain

2010-07-30T03:51:00.006+01:00

Yesterday evening we hauled the kit up to a high spot to get some wide shots of the stunning Yala National Park.

Some of the Sri Lankan team; Lucksman Bandara (park warden), Ajit Kumara (driver), Kalu Murugiesh (driver), Thilanka Ranatunga (naturalist)

Ammonite cameramen; Tom Stephens, Howard Bourne, Martin Dohrn

Leopard spotting

Buffalo Bath Water

2010-07-20T14:00:00.004+01:00

Last night we were filming a young female leopard as she approached a small waterhole. Water is starting to become sparse as the drought takes hold and waterholes are become more dispersed here in the south east of Sri Lanka. Due to their strong territoriality leopards regularly drink from their local waterhole, so you can imagine the surprise of our young female when she discovered a huge water buffalo blissfully lying in the muddy remains of her drinking pool.

Far from being deterred she silently approached the buffalo and hid behind a tree until darkness fell. Then as the light failed she crept around behind him and started drinking. All we could see was the buffalo and the leopards tail raised in the air like a flag as she precariously balanced herself to drink from the waterhole. After a few moments the buffalo's eyes shot open as he realised that there was an intrusion into his bath water. Stomping out of the bath and dripping with ooze he chased the leopard around the waterhole and into a tree. Almost blind in the dark the buffalo then paraded around the waterhole, seemingly looking for the leopard before squelching off into the forest. The leopard meanwhile, coolly jumped out of the tree and resumed her drink in peace.

We are returning to the waterhole tonight to see if the leopard returns!

TS

Thermal image of Buffalo and leopard: copyright ammonite

Leopard Spotting

2010-07-19T14:38:00.000+01:00

Leopards are famous for their mysterious elusive nature. Obvious when sighted but extremely hard to pick out of the forest due to their dappled camouflage that blends so seamlessly into their surroundings. By day they could be concealed on the forest floor or high up in a tree enjoying a catnap, it’s hard to know where to look. Our challenge is even greater, finding these secretive cats at night and discovering exactly what they are getting up to.

So, with two starlight cameras, one thermal, two spotting vehicles, four night scopes and a small stadiums worth of infrared lights we set out every night to search for them. It may sound excessive but so far we’ve been successful in filming a leopard every night. This would be almost unheard of in Africa where leopards are far less common or dense in their distribution. But this isn’t Africa, we are in one of Asia’s most abundant wildlife areas and filming nocturnal behaviour new to television.

It’s whistling peacocks and chital deer alarm calls that we are listening out for in the forest night. The team are adapting to a whole new ecosystem and discovering leopards are far from predictable. But so far we’ve fortunate in finding them and with another night beckoning let’s hope that our luck continues!

TS

Jungle Driving

2010-07-12T12:35:00.003+01:00

It’s 35 degrees with sweltering humidity and we’re deep in the Sri Lankan jungle. Our car is completely blacked out with hardly any visible lights other than the glow of our camera monitors. Infra red lights illuminate the road for our driver as we bounce down the forest track, scanning bushes and clearings for the most elusive of cats. It’s all very covert sounding but I fear our extremely loud car engine may give our presence away. We’re riding in a Ta Ta, one of India’s largest car manufacturers but sadly for us, it’s also the loudest.

Our standard covert approach is something like – Brum Brum Brum, “What’s that!?”, Brum Brum Brum, “STOP THE CAR!!”, screeeetch! “Turn Right”, Brum Brum Brum, “STOP THERE!”, BRUM! “Shhhhhhhhhhh!”

Not exactly a subtle entrance.

Despite the engine noise we’re nearly a week into our trip and every night is providing new insights into this amazing place. We’re looking for leopards as part of a new night series recently commissioned by National Geographic. With the new series comes a new member of the night team, our very own Howard Bourne, cameraman, engineer, kit guru and photographer. This is Howard’s first night assignment but it’s going to be a busy year filming so expect to see more of him and the night car over the next few months.

I’m afraid you may have to wait till next year to see if we’re successful in filming these stunning big cats but check back here for updates.

Tom Stephens

First Day

2010-07-08T16:22:00.009+01:00

The component arrived - just in time - but the drama didn't abate. Testing the camera when we were supposed to be ready and packed, we breathed a collective sigh of relief when we got the last bag loaded into the car with just one missing wallet between us.

We were barely late getting on the road and as Roger sped us airportward it was looking good right up until the junction before Heathrow where we joined a massive tailback and spent hours at a standstill, there was a panickey trolley dash for Check-in and Customs and the spiral of solder in my bag really did look quite a lot like a bomb fuse in the x-ray machine.

We have now arrived at Yala and today is the day we set up the vehicles; special filming cages and rails have been fitted to a Tata and a Jeep and we are getting busy with cardboard, foam and gaffer tape constructing super-lo-tech housings for our super-hi-tech equipment

All Packed And Ready To Go

2010-07-05T08:37:00.010+01:00

Visas? - check

Vaccinations? - check

Filming Permits? - check

Flights booked and paid for? - check

Equipment? - 20 cases already waiting in Columbo

Starlight Camera? - ????????

It's been a buttock-clenching month, the final component needed to mend our Starlight Camera was sent out to us a couple of weeks ago - and got lost in transit, every day since, we've eagerly awaited it's arrival.

With the filming dates fixed to coincide with favorable moons and the best chance of good weather we need to go tomorrow.

As I write this, a Camera Boy is running back from Europe clutching a new part - will he get it back here and in the camera by tomorrow morning?

Ammonite’s Man In Colombo

2010-06-07T13:55:00.003+01:00

Just a week ago I was in huddled under canvas enjoying the bank holiday on the bright but chilly Devon coastline. A few days and a couple of quick decisions later, I found myself on malaria tablets and in the middle of the IIFA Bollywood film awards in Colombo.

It has been a hectic and sleepless couple of days but after a frankly terrifying six-hour drive through Sri Lanka’s stunning interior (overtaking buses and elephants on low-loaders), I finally made it to the wild south coast. Crashing surf and thick jungle greeted me along with monitor lizards and cobras spilling out of the forest and onto my hotel room terrace.

I’m in the depths of the Sri Lankan jungle on a week-long recce for a forth-coming Ammonite project (watch this space for details!). However I would be giving little away to say that I’ve visited one of Sri Lanka’s most pristine wildlife areas where I encountered a totally different ecosystem than I’ve become familiar with in Africa. Water buffalo appear like submarines from waterholes whilst smiling crocodiles line the banks. Lazy leopards hang in the trees contemptibly looking at the clambering vehicles surrounding them. It’s a great place.

Whilst I’m here I’ve been working with a fantastic local team who’ve been trialling a rather unique remote camera. Always keen on new technology at Ammonite I couldn’t help myself in lending a hand with the trial run this morning. Attaching a tiny HD camera in an underwater housing (that can apparently survive being run over) we fixed the camera to a kids remote control car and parked it in front of a herd of elephants. I’m not sure if being squashed by an elephant is in the manufactures warranty but fortunately we’ve not had to find out yet as the elephants took a curious interest before moving on without crushing our new toy. I’ve attached what can only be described as a mongoose’s eye view of an elephant with this post.

So it’s back to the office on Wednesday and leaving the warmth of Sri Lanka behind, look out for our posts over the summer as the Ammonite crew return to the jungle on our latest assignment.

Tom Stephens

Bourne Goes Badgering

2010-05-28T17:22:00.004+01:00

Howard Bourne has been out filming badger activity at night. Here's a clip, just in case you ever doubted the cuteness of either Howard or the Badgers.

... Erm click on the movie to watch in Youtube if you'd like to see the whole frame

Dirt Box Ants

2010-05-18T19:18:00.003+01:00

Two days on, the dirt box ants have put most of the soil where they want it and have created a wonderful array of tunnels, chambers, trash heaps and new fungus gardens. They are adapting their deep urge to dig within the confines of a few plastic boxes and a couple of plastic tubes - and seem very happy. When offered fresh rose leaves, they immediately set about cutting them into little semi-circles before carting them off to the fungus gardens (see image). There, the leaves are cut into yet smaller semi circles, dosed with a bit of anal secrection, chewed a bit and applied to the ever growing mass of fungal hyphae.

The details of this process are only now being worked out. Michael Poulson, Cameron Currie and the team at the Currie lab are discovering that the ants are manipulating various kinds of bacteria to aid the fungus and increase its nutritional value in a complex 4 (or more) way symbiosis.

Leaf Cutter Lab Ants

2010-05-15T12:47:00.003+01:00

After an arduous journey consisting of at least 20 different queues, three different airports, and a bomb ‘scare’ (nobody seemed very scared) we finally arrived in Madison Wisconsin. We’re here at the Cameron Currie lab to film the internals of leaf cutter nests that would be impossible to see in the wild without digging up the whole enormous colony and destroying it. Luckily for us, leafcutters are easily kept in captivity and are the focus of much research on how exactly they manage their crops of cultivated fungus.

The ants here live mostly in plastic boxes of various sizes, and their beautiful sponge-like fungus gardens are easy to see. (Alex Wild was here a couple of weeks ago and took these pictures

As we need to film these ants in a more natural situation, we’ve given them some real dirt to play with. They haven’t seen soil since they were collected from Costa Rica a couple of years ago, and they are loving it. Yesterday morning, they started excavating some new chambers for fungus gardens, and we’ve managed to film some close up digging, and spectacular tracking shots of them carrying the soil down tunnels to the soil dump.

...And They're Off!

2010-05-12T07:22:00.003+01:00

Howard Bourne, William Dohrn and Martin Dohrn are on their way to Wisconsin, USA to film leafcutter ants.

Dispatches arriving shortly

Ant Intelligence

2010-05-07T12:11:00.011+01:00

Not content with simply going around the world to film diverse colonies of ants for The Incredible Film About Ants (title tbc). We have now travelled right across Bristol to visit Professor Nigel Franks, a world expert on social insect behaviour.

The ant's sophisticated communication and decision-making systems are key to their global success, Professor Franks has a colony of rock ants each with a tiny chip on their back, participants in an experiment demonstrating how ants make choices between prospective nesting sites more details of this work here. We had a busy day filming the ants as they moved around the set activating laser-controlled doors on their way to different sites, we also interviewed Professor Franks for the film.

We have two more filming trips to make before we can hand the material to the editor, stay tuned...

Photos
Howard Bourne filming in the lab with Professor Franks (Nadége Laici)
Chipped rock ants - Temnothorax albipennis (Ammonite photography team)

Hangers on

2010-05-01T10:50:00.002+01:00

The mystery skin disease turned out to be 'cutaneous larva migrans', a kind of worm that burrows into the skin and intends to enter the lungs where it lays eggs, which get coughed up and swallowed - to pass out in the animals faeces. Thankfully in humans this hanger on lacks the necessary enzymes to penetrate the body, and can only meander aimlessly just under the skin until it runs out of motivation. It can be treated with a drug called Albendazole.

The army ants have their own hangers on. In the photo, what appears to be an ant is in fact a small beetle, dressed up to look like an army ant, which lives its entire life in the mobile ant colony, feeding on the plentiful prey that the army ants bring back to camp.

The Cost of Good Images

2010-04-26T06:26:00.002+01:00

Frankencam has been designed to make filming small things on the forest floor easy. Taking still images is a whole other problem. If you want to get striking photos of ants, you may well need to lie down on the ground with them. In the tropics, this behaviour carries a risk - in this case, some kind of burrowing animal (see photo) - possibly a fly larva, possibly a very large kind of mite (photo dimensions about 40mmx35mm). If anyone has an idea what it could be, we’d love to know.

Argentine Ants

2010-04-26T06:23:00.002+01:00

Our last shoot in Spain focussed on the Argentine ant invasion of the world. Scientists are only just unravelling the causes of their incredible success at colonising Europe, North America, Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand and many more. It turns out that the bulk of these ants form one enormous super colony of ants that will always welcome each other if introduced. There are other supercolonies, one from Catalonia in Spain, which will immediately attack ants from different super colonies, and fight to the death. This photo shows one ant from the main supercolony snipping the leg of an ant from the Catalan supercolony, while its own limbs are severed in the same way.

Army Ant Myth

2010-04-26T06:15:00.003+01:00

People love to write and believe sensationalist drivel about army ants. The internet is full of made-up ‘facts’ that suggest they can eat chickens, pigs, even people, that everything living flees from their advance etc etc. In fact, the best known species of army ant, Eciton burchellii doesn’t eat meat, never touches carrion, and a swarm will turn and run from a stamped foot or human breath. Its behaviour is still utterly extraordinary, and is an ant filmmakers dream - because it lives most of its life in the open where it can be seen. In this photo, a coordinated team of four ants cooperate to carry a centipede carcass.

There are other species of army ant that are much less pleasant to work with. Labidus and Dorylus are two genera of more aggressive ants that will attack livestock if it is caged or tied. But even for them, stripping a mouse to the bone would take a day. Disposing of a chicken is entirely out of their league.

Bullet Ant Myth

2010-04-26T06:09:00.003+01:00

This is one of the largest species of ant in the world, about 25mm long, here carrying a drop of liquid back to its nest. Apparently it’s called the bullet ant because it is said that when it stings you, you feel as if you’ve been shot. Personally, I’d say it’s more like a bee sting, only a bit sharper, and nowhere near as painful as the sting of the harvester ant (Pogonomyrmex), one species of which has been identified as possessing the most potent venom of any animal so far tested.

Airport Drama

2010-04-18T23:16:00.003+01:00

The message to Iceland had been
'Please send CASH'

meanwhile our ant-filming crew are stuck in Madrid airport waiting for the rest of the cases to turn up - we have a lot of baggage

Santa Rosa Dry Forest trees

2010-04-11T18:14:00.000+01:00

Costa Rica wet and dry

2010-04-11T18:12:00.002+01:00

The dry season is the best time of year to visit Santa Rosa. Because of the extreme conditions (rain for 6 months, no rain at all for 6 months) the trees here have developed some spectacular adaptations to the climate. By January, most of the trees have lost all of their leaves, and the place looks almost like a northerm deciduous forest in the winter. But it’s 40 degrees in the shade. Extreme thorns are a regular features (see photo) while other trees have bark that can continue to photosynthesise through the dryest weather, long after the tree has become leafless (see photo).

100 miles away, on the other side of the mountains which divide Costa Rica, is La Selva research station, the place that caused the fungal foot episode. Here, the habitat is rain forest in the truest sense. At the moment, it rains for an hour, then we get no rain at all for an hour. Filming is going slowly. Today the crew are waiting out the weather beneath a canopy created by huge 60 metre trees, notably ceiba, surrounded by ferns of every description, and the wild relatives of typical office pot plants, ficus, palms, cheese plants etc. (pics to follow)

The Director

Deer chases vampire in Costa Rica

2010-04-11T18:07:00.000+01:00

It's Getting Competitive

2010-04-09T21:59:00.008+01:00

The Director has sent us this photo of an arm that has reacted badly to the bites of tick larvae. He feels that this spectacle deserves more sympathy than Stephen's fungal foot - should we turn this into a proper competition, awarding a medal to the most appalling fate suffered by wildlife film-makers?

Vampires In The Forest

2010-04-08T09:33:00.007+01:00

While the ant crew are filming at La Selva, I’m spending a few days in another part of Costa Rica - the extraordinary Pacific dry forest of Guanacaste conservation area* - investigating the possibility of another film (that would be our fourth in this area).

This forest type was once found along the entire Central American Pacific coast, and now exists only as a few fragments, this being probably the largest.

At this time of year, it’s bone dry, few of the trees have leaves, and yet there are still typical rainforest animals living here, parrots, tapirs, jaguars, three species of monkey - and vampire bats.

Last night, testing the thermal camera allowed us to watch as vampires landed near white tailed deer, and hop towards them. The deer knew exactly what was going on, and chased the vampires away.

The Director

* more here

Welly Rot

2010-04-04T15:33:00.009+01:00

I have cycled more miles in the last week than over the course of the entire year. This isn’t part of some new fitness program; it’s all because of ants.

My recent bout of pedalling is taking place in jungle – Costa Rican jungle. We are at La Selva, a small reserve run by the Organization for Tropical Studies. They had the foresight to make this beautiful patch of rainforest accessible to everyone, and that means broad cement trails that link together a good chunk of its 1600 hectares of protected land. For a film crew it’s a great help, particularly when you have 21 cases of heavy film equipment to lug through the forest. We can rent tricycles with large front-loaded luggage carriers to move our equipment to the best areas for ant action. In the last week we have witnessed two army ant raids, filmed leaf-cutter ants chomping their way through hundreds of cocoa leaves and assembled a 20-foot crane in the forest to shoot a high-angle view of a large leaf-cutter ants’ nest.

But I am beginning to feel rotten – quite literally. My left foot has developed a fungal infection from days spent in sweaty rubber boots. Why rubber boots? There are plenty of snakes in the forest that could kill with a single bite not to mention the awesome stinging power of hundreds of thousand of marching army ants; boots are a line of defence against the dangerous creatures of the jungles but unfortunately the pay-off seems to be foot rot! I think, all things considered, I’ll stick with wearing the boots and take my chances with my rotting left foot.

Stephen Dunleavy

And They're Off

2010-03-31T20:56:00.004+01:00

Howard Bourne, Alastair McEwan and Stephen Donleavy packed their several dozen bags and set off to Costa Rica for the next stage of ant filming.

We are already getting reports of gruesome fungal attacks

news from the front will be arriving soon!