Oliver G Pike

Films - Wild Birds at Home, 1912 (silent, stencil coloured on original black and white film)

Oliver Pike worked for Pathé Frères from 1910 to 1917; they were at the forefront of commercial film production before the First World War. He produced many short films of birds, some of which were stencil coloured by hand in France, using coloured drawings as reference material. This procedure resulted in at least one error, when a mallard duck sitting on eggs was coloured in the drake's fine plumage by mistake. The colouring, however, is mostly superb.

An extract from one of Oliver Pike's colour films can be seen on YouTube, courtesy of BFI Films.
The link is: YouTube - Wild Birds at Home (Pike, 1912).

The clip shows Great Crested Grebes, Pheasants, a Coot and a Sedge Warbler. Some of these shots may have been filmed at Tring reservoirs.



Pike in Hide

Oliver Pike in a hide filming Great Crested Grebes at Tring, about 1910