This year, during the spring and summer, the Central Forest Reserve hosted the filming of the movie "Science of Life" by the "Scientific Film Laboratory" studio. The film will tell about the works of Russian biologists from different fields of science. The idea of its creation belongs to cameramen and directors Mikhail Rodionov and Nadezhda Dorofeeva. Mikhail and Nadezhda have made more than a dozen films about the nature of Russia. They have repeatedly won prizes at Russian and international festivals. Famous and beloved by viewers films are The Beauty of the Grebe, Carnival of Beaks and Pelican Islands. Mikhail has films of his own: I Saw a Snowfowl, Zapovedny Dagestan, 4 Seasons of the Prioksky Forest. Nadezhda - Sea Magpie, Madame Gaga, Lake in the Sea.
Footage of work with camera traps to study large and medium-sized mammals was acquired for the film in the Central Forest Reserve. It was recorded with the reserve's leading researcher Sergei Ogurtsov, as well as colleagues from the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Natalia Sidorchuk, a researcher at the Laboratory of Behavior and Behavioral Ecology of Mammals, who studies the biology of the European badger, spoke about the behavior of this fascinating animal. Dmitry Ivanov, an employee of the V.N. Sukachev Laboratory of Biogeocenology, spoke about ecological and climatic studies on the territory of the reserve and the protected zone.
From June 31 to the present day, work has been underway to film myxomycetes and fungi with Vladimir Gmoshinsky, senior lecturer at the MSU Biological Faculty. After a rainy week, favorable conditions have developed for the active emergence of fruiting bodies of mushrooms. Several successful shots were captured on camera.
During the same period, Vladimir Arkhipov, a sound engineer and senior researcher at the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Biophysics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, recorded the voices of some forest birds and other sounds of nature in the reserve (the sound of rain, songs of grasshoppers, the creaking of woodworms). He was lucky enough to observe the feeding of a goshawk chick. A recording of robins feeding a cuckoo chick was a stroke of luck.
Mikhail also organized a screening of the film "The Beauty of the Grebe" for students of the Biological Faculty of Moscow State University and students of the Moscow School of Arts, who are currently studying at the reserve. The film was, as they say, on topic, since it had many scenes with ornithologist and animal artist Evgeny Koblik, who drew grebes in the frame and talked about the characteristics of representatives of one of the most beautiful and little-known bird families, the Grebe. All viewers were delighted with the screening.
The screening of the film "Science of Life" will take place next year.
Text and photographs by Elena Shuyskaya, the reserve's scientific department
Photos by Mikhail Rodionov