Hummingbird ‘Spy’ Drone Captures Stunning Video from Inside a Monarch Butterfly Swarm

The PBS show Nature recently released a clip from its ‘Spy in the Wild’ series that will take your breath away. Using a drone disguised as a hummingbird, they captured incredible footage of 0.5 billion monarch butterflies swarming as the weather warms.

The footage was captured in the heart of a grove, buried deep in the mountains of Mexico.
As it begins, millions of Monarch butterflies can be seen sleeping, huddling together to keep warm. But as the weather warms up and hits a critical tipping point, they begin to leave their perches—first as a trickle, and then as an all-out billion-winged swarm.

The resulting footage is both spectacular to behold and apparently quite rare: “[This is] a spectacle that has rarely been filmed,” says the narrator, “and our spy is harmlessly in the very heart of it.”

Check out the full PBS clip up top to experience this incredible bit of nature documentary for yourself. And if you want to see more from the PBS show Nature, you can find full episodes at this link. The second episode of Spy in the Wild—which features this clip and many others—is set to go live on May 6th.

(via Kottke.org)

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