Ride of the Mergansers

Steve Furman's film festival award-winning nature music video Ride of the Mergansers, filmed in northern Minnesota in 2003 using cameras hidden in and around a nesting box, follows the hatching and initial flight of a brood of baby merganser ducks. While there is no narration, onscreen titles provide factual information about the ducklings' gestation period and hatching, after which they make their way out of the nesting box within a 24-hour period, taking a dramatic plunge as the soundtrack serves up Wagner's “Ride of the Valkyries” (imagine duckling after little duckling leaping from the nest box and sailing down to the water, accompanied by the crashing cymbals that punctuate the piece—it made me laugh out loud). Recommended. Aud: E, P. (R. Reagan)