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These Birds Were Made for Walking
By Davis Ryan Cook,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Beautiful nature docu has much info, some animal violence.
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These Birds Were Made for Walking
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What's the Story?
THESE BIRDS WERE MADE FOR WALKING jumps (or should we say flies?) from place to place and from species to species, providing an overview of the various ways and reasons whereby many different species of bird have adapted over the millennia to stop flying and instead use their wings to fulfill different functions. Whether it's to save energy, tap into new food resources, or adapt to an altogether unique setting like the Galapagos, all modern-day flightless birds have one or more evolutionary reasons behind their down-to-earth attitude. By building up an anthology of brief scenes showing the different flightless birds engaging in these special evolution-based activities,
Is It Any Good?
These Birds Were Made for Walking constructs a half hour filled with beautiful camerawork, quippy dialogue, biology, history, ecology, and more. Like other Curiositystream documentaries, it maintains beautiful camerawork and lush, world-immersing sounds to bring the viewer out into the world of some other species that the viewer might not have even known about yet. Explaining facts like how the separation of the supercontinent Pangea into smaller continents gave way to divergent evolution among the flightless ratite bird, the documentary accounts for a comprehensive and intellectually stimulating collection of enriching sights and sounds.
The usual problem with nature documentaries like this one is that it might be simply not interesting for many possible viewers unless those viewers are already interested in biology and/or ecology. The same holds true for These Birds Were Made for Walking, although the wealth of humor and beautiful production and educational information that it packs into a half hour should hold viewers' attentions better than other nature documentaries.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about how many of the ostriches, penguins, cassowaries, rheas, and more species can look so different from humans yet still worry about some of the same problems (getting enough food, conserving energy, etc.). What are some things that you do throughout the day that these other animals do as well?
Why are there so many nature documentaries like this one? What do we gain by making and watching nature documentaries?
How is watching nature documentaries about all these species better and/or worse in your opinion than going to the zoo to observe them in real time?
Movie Details
- On DVD or streaming: November 16, 2020
- Studio: Doclights
- Genre: Documentary
- Topics: STEM , Science and Nature , Wild Animals
- Run time: 30 minutes
- MPAA rating: PG
- Last updated: November 16, 2021
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