Awesome Nature

Two Audiovisual Media students from Stuttgart Media University spent two weeks in Iceland to make this 4K time lapse video, featuring the island nation’s stunning landscapes and some of its wildlife.

Photographer Jeff Boyce shot over 70,000 images to create this impressive time-lapse video of storms, stars and skies. No fancy hyperlapse, no quick cuts or zooms. Just a sharp and steady eye watching nature do its thing.

The WWF of Australia strapped a GoPro onto the back of a green turtle as it was tagged and released back into the wild. Follow along with the big guy on a first-turtle view of the Great Barrier Reef without getting your hair wet.

Timestorm Films had just finished shooting at a volcano in Chile when Calbuco erupted. They quickly set up all of their cameras and captured 4K and 8K time-lapses of Calbuco’s ash and smoke spreading in the sky.

The Smithsonian Channel shares this amazing slow-motion footage of violets, touch-me nots and squirting cucumbers (yep, that’s really a thing) as they procreate by exploding, which spreads their seeds all over the place.

A team of marine scientists funded by the NOAA used a robotic camera off the coast of Puerto Rico to capture incredible footage of just a few of the unusual undersea lifeforms dwelling up to 20,000ft. beneath the surface. More here.

Usually, woodpeckers tap away at trees to get some sap or bugs out of them, but it appears that this pileated ‘pecker spotted in New Brunswick, Canada has its sights set on chopping down and entire tree with its beak.

At first glance you’d think you’re just looking at the floor of the sea. But upon closer inspection, you’ll see an unusual ground-hugging fish that blends into its surroundings so well that you’d never know it was there until it moves.

Devin Supertramp and his crew take advantage of a nearly dried up waterfall in New Zealand by turning it into a waterslide. Judging from the (heavily sponsored) behind-the-scenes video, it’s just as fun and as risky as it looks.

Kalle Ljung filmed the Antarctic sights with a GoPro Hero 3+ Black on a DJI Phantom 2. Swathed in turquoise and white, free from man’s synthetic grasp and placidly desolate, the continent might as well be on another planet.

Walter Witt was at the Llanquihue National Reserve in Chile admiring the picturesque view. He moved his camera up to include the volcano in the background… only to see it wake up. He reacts accordingly.

The Calbuco volcano in Chile recently erupted for the first time in 42 years, spewing smoke and ash 6mi upwards, along with lava and volcanic lightning. YouTuber Rodrigo Barrera captured this amazing time-lapse of the eruption.

Incredible footage of a cast of spider crabs stacking into a pyramid. Divers from Australia’s Pink Tank Scuba stumbled onto these crustaceans, and say they were likely traveling in formation to protect themselves from predators.

Dakotalapse shares some of his best 4K time-lapse photography from 2014. Galaxies and thunderstorms dominate these overwhelming shots, which were taken in Wyoming, Utah and South Dakota. Buy the full 30min. version here.

National Geographic caught up with a giant Amazon river turtle in South America, and strapped a camera to its back. Let’s go for a ride with this majestic, endangered beast as it interacts with others of its species.

RISD film and video professor Dennis Hlynsky recorded this mesmerizing footage of hundreds of starlings as they move from power line to power line. Using a high-speed camera, he was able to record the flight path of each individual bird.

It’s rare to see a single shark swimming in the water, so that makes this occurrence even more amazing, as an oil rig worker captured a large group of migrating sharks swimming together in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast.

The seed of the stork’s bill has a thorny appendage that twists into a spring-like shape when exposed to moisture. This allows the seed to launch itself from the stork’s bill’s fruit and then drill itself into the ground.

Snowboarder Mike Basich has fully embraced the outdoor lifestyle, and now lives in a tiny 225 square foot organic structure he built from stone and wood in the middle of his 40-acre property. Naturally, there’s plenty of snow outside.

To promote Russian airline S7 Airlines, advertising agency W+K Amsterdam asked kids to come up with imaginary locations, then showed that our planet is fantastic in its own ways. One-way ticket to Lake Chocolate please.

We already know the best way to attract piranhas is to feed them meat. So check out the feeding frenzy that happens when somebody tosses some bloody meat chunks into a river in Brazil. We certainly wouldn’t want to fall in that water.

Teton Gravity Research’s film crew used a GSS C520 gyro-stabilized camera setup and flew on a helicopter to take this wonderful ultra high-definition footage of the Himalayas, from 4,600ft. up to 20,000ft.

Like Slow Life, Sandro Bocci’s …Meanwhile… is a collection of close up time-lapse videos of corals, sponges and other peculiar marine animals. Equal parts beautiful and horrifying. We’re not gonna say they’re aliens, but they’re aliens.

Good Morning America and DJI used the Inspire 1 drone to stream live footage of Bardarbunga, an active volcano in Iceland. The reporter blabbered all through out, but to be fair she seemed genuinely amazed at what they were doing.

Jonathan Gordon was taken aback while snorkeling in the caribbean, as he stumbled onto this octopus and its amazing innate abilities to blend into its surroundings. It’s exactly like the plot of Octodad, but not.

The Grand Canyon National Park Service shared this time-lapse of a temperature inversion at the beautiful canyon. Trapped by warm air, a huge mass of fog blanketed the canyon, ebbing and flowing like water at a beach.