  Kleptoparasitism may seem like a Scrabble player's wildest fantasy, but the term also describes a frequent phenomenon in nature. A kleptoparasite is an animal that steals food from another, so it doesn't have to work so hard to eat. Think of it as highway robbery, sometimes involving members of the same species, other times involving members of two different species.
In the Birds episode of Life, the magnificent frigatebird, Fregata magnificens, plays the part of the robber. Its victim is the red-billed tropicbird, Phaethon aethereus. The highway is actually the open air above the ocean. What ensues is nothing less than an avian dogfight, with both birds putting their superb flying skills to the test. To get the shots of these aerial maneuvers, which were filmed at a small Caribbean island known as Little Tobago, members of the Life crew had to break new ground. Or maybe it's better to say they had to go to new heights.
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Watch "Tropicbirds Fly the Gauntlet"
HIGH-FLYING FILMMAKING
Choosing Little Tobago as the location to film kleptoparasitism didn't take a great deal of imagination, according to BBC assistant producer Stephen Lyle. The island is well-known among ornithologists as an important breeding ground for seabirds, including boobies, shearwaters, terns and, of course, tropicbirds.
"Little Tobago is a protected island with a thriving red-billed tropicbird colony and plenty of frigatebirds," Lyle explained. "The kleptoparasitism had been documented at this site before, so we had a good idea of how close we might get and how often we would see the behavior."
Not that this made the shoot any easier. The crew didn't want to be below the action, which is generally how footage of flying birds is captured, but rather give viewers the sense of being in the air with the birds.
"To achieve this [effect]," Lyle said, "we needed many different angles from the ground, but we also needed aerials." A helicopter, flown in from St. Lucia, helped lift cameraman Simon Werry high enough to get a bird's-eye view. These shots were complemented with footage taken by camerman Barrie Britton from the island's steep cliffs, which typically required him to wait for hours and then train his lens far offshore, where the tropicbirds and frigatebirds often waged their battles.
"Barrie is the best at filming birds on a long lens," Lyle said. "He's incredibly skilled, and much of the credit for the success of the shoot must go to his technical abilities."
The other star was the camera itself. Britton and Lyle used a high-definition video camera capable of filming at a resolution of 1,080 pixels and 1,000 frames per second. This translates into stunning clarity, as well as the ability to slow down motion more effectively than a traditional super-16 or 35 mm camera. According to Lyle, the use of HD equipment in this way was unique.
"As far as I'm aware," he said, "this shoot was the first to use these cameras for a natural history documentary."
Sophisticated technology couldn't replace old-fashioned field skills and patience. The
Life crew spent two weeks on Little Tobago and filmed 100 hours of video for every minute used in the last sequence. The final product was well worth the effort.
"I think having all these angles helps convey the 3-D world of these birds and gives the sequence a uniquely aerial feel," Lyle noted.
Continue: The Perils of Tropicbird Parenthood
