Cat Behavior Time Lapse Videos

Time lapse videos compress time. When the video is of a cat you can see more clearly some of the nuances of cat behavior. For example, the cat who is supposedly totally inactive (to the casual glance) is not. Cats lounging in the sun and snoozing are actually quite alert. One of the obvious signs is the movement of the ears as they rotate towards a sound. Apparently there are 32 muscles that control a cat’s ear flap. It is like radar. When did you last move your ear voluntarily? Some people can but most of us can’t because the muscles just don’t function anymore, if there are any.

When the cat picks up a sound that might be meaningful he looks up. This is not sleeping as we know it, is it? Cats snooze lightly, almost not sleeping at all for long periods. Then dozing off and waking up again, not long afterwards. You know when a cat is asleep – they snore or make sleeping sounds.

In the second video, below, this short time lapse video shows a cat, Loki, looking out of the window of a high rise apartment (it seems) and at first looks out, intently; looking down. Then Loki chooses to rest and finally leaves the window sill.

Cat time lapse is interesting because cats do a lot of things that are very low key. We can miss the action! Click on the link to see indoor cat behavior over ten hours.

Below is a totally professional time lapse trailer by one of the best in the business. It is awesome. Time lapse sheds light on cat behavior and things that are invisible to us.

The above video shows us how wonderful the natural world and the universe is. The cat time lapse videos provide an insight into cat behavior.

How do you make time lapse videos?

Time lapse is a series of many thousands of still images joined together by software. You attach a device to your camera which controls the camera. It takes a photo every second or whatever duration you have set.

The camera is usually on a tripod. Apple Mac computers have built in software to make a time lapse video from a long series of photos. You’ll need a heavy weight camera and computer though as the process is quite demanding on processors.

The timing device for the Canon – in my case a Canon 7D – is a Canon Timer Remote Controller TC-80N3. There are probably others.

Note: I have to warn visitors that embedded videos (as these are) sometimes go black because the source is removed for various reasons.