Drone video of Ceroxylon quindiuense in Cocora Valley, Colombia

[GMann]

Took a trip to Quindio, Colombia to visit the Cocora Valley to see the Colombian Wax Palm (Ceroxylon quindiuense) in it's natural habitat. Here is a drone video I made of it:
 

 

[James B]

Incredible!

[TheMadScientist]

@GMann, you always do a great job of flying.  Do you use your phone as your "device"?  It appears to me that a number of flights were done on different days as I could see wind at times....I'm guessing around 12 to 15 mph.  What was the longest distance you flew away from your position?  The reason for these questions, it becomes very difficult to see some of the tops of those palms.  Thank You for this post.

[GMann]

Yes I do use my phone as the viewer to watch what I am capturing while I fly. 

As a matter of fact all of the footage was filmed in the space of about 25 minutes. It was a family trip and we had hired some horses for a couple of hours to go up to a viewing spot with my wife and daughter,  the grandparents were looking after my son and baby down at the bottom, so I did not have a lot of time to film and pretty soon an official came over and told me that flying a drone was not allowed so I had to put it away after about 25 minutes anyway. 

The farthest I flew away from me was 470 meters. I was being very careful because from prior experience I know there is a big difference between losing your drone when you have all day to find it and losing your drone when you are on a tight schedule.

As for your observation about changes in the wind speed, that is probably just me speeding up some of the video clips subtly (about 40%) to make it more interesting whilst leaving some other clips at the regular speed.  As long as there are no people walking around in the background you get away with speeding up the clips without the viewer noticing and it can make the movement of the drone approaching some obstacle less boring than when you leave the video at natural speed, but what you do notice is the wind shaking the palms faster than they actually were.

[Darold Petty]

GMann, thanks very much for posting !  

[DoomsDave]

Wow! Hmm, @Darold Pettythat gives us something to look forward to in ancient old age . . . .

[hbernstein]

Are there any younger ones in the area?

[Darold Petty]

Perhaps in the remnant forest patches, but certainly not in the cow pastures.  

[palmfriend]

Impressive!

I tried a few sprouts of them over here but our long lasting summers are too warm for this species - not to mention how grown up ones would have dealt with our typhoons...

Thank you very much for posting - 

Lars

 

[piping plovers]

Amazing video to watch. They are so perfect they look fake, also so exaggerated in palminess that they look CGI created.

I’m sure this question has been asked over and over again, but why do they have to grow so high?  Wouldn’t it be enough to outgrow only the tallest nearby competing trees?  Or herbivores? Unless those competitors are now extinct and this palm doesn’t know any better .   Or, the climate is so moist there’s not significant limiting factors raising water to top of the trees .

[GMann]

On 8/25/2022 at 4:12 PM, hbernstein said:

Are there any younger ones in the area?

Yes there are. I saw a few younger ones. Near the edges of the forest and I expect if you went deep into the forests there would be quite a few under the trees.

[GMann]

There's a baby with no trunk in the middle of this still:

[hbernstein]

18 hours ago, GMann said:

Yes there are. I saw a few younger ones. Near the edges of the forest and I expect if you went deep into the forests there would be quite a few under the trees.

Much relieved.  

[BayAndroid]

Thanks so much for this! Great view!