There is something so charming and old-fashioned about the Disney live product and this is the finest. It is worth nothing for the historian that 20,000 leagues started out as a true life documentary. But here we have a 28 minute visit to a somewhat real, sometimes fictitious world of birds who are water-oriented. My grandfather (this is the memory part) had a battered 16mm film copy which we shown to my elementary school classes when I was a wee-lad. Over the years, it was shown to my daughter's class and sold off. She was devastated so I fond an E-Bay 16mm print that was BETTER than his print. Still on my shelf though 16mm is a passing media for watching. BETTER is a DVD media which I obtained so this one goes way back.

Watch and remember a time when our world was a lot more innocent than it is today.

"Water Birds" came out one year before the Disney company started making feature-length True-Life documentaries, and it is one of their most artistically accomplished efforts in this field. The first 25 minutes contain some remarkable footage of strange and/or wonderful creatures, but it's the last 5 minutes, a narration-free audiovisual rhapsody, that really makes this one special. *** out of 4.

Between 1948 and 1960, Disney made fourteen nature documentary films, seven of them short subjects and seven of them full length and all narrated by Winston Hibler. Starting with 'Seal Island' and ending with 'Jungle Cat'. This series was called True Life Adventures, seen as a big fan of Disney and nature documentaries and after wanting to see some older nature documentaries. The True Life Adventures series is a more than worthwhile one and of consistently high quality (especially the short subjects) and do prefer all of them over most of the recent years DisneyNature films.

There have been many fine documentaries on types of birds overtime, one of the best and most comprehensive being one of the best True Life Adventures short films 'Water Birds'. One would be hard pressed to find a better documentary on solely water birds anywhere. Namely because of the beautiful visuals and the perfect marriage of visuals and music, as well as being truly informative and making a lot interesting out of a subject matter that could be explored more in documentaries.

'Water Birds' is beautifully shot in vivid colour and the scenery is completely natural and is gorgeous and unyielding in equal measure, plus the birds are photographed in all their glory. Personally think it is one of the best looking documentaries in the True Life Adventures series, especially the last five minutes. The music also works wonderfully, personally didn't think it was overbearing at all and it is not used too much or too quirky or too dark. 'Water Birds' actually contains one of the best examples of a perfect marriage of visuals and music, as far as the short films in the series goes this aspect was bettered only by 'Nature's Half Acre'.

Furthermore, 'Water Birds' is highly informative and did find myself learning a huge amount, actually it is one of the more illuminating True Life Adventures documentaries). It is also very engaging and investable and there is plenty for those that are familiar with the subject but want to see something fresh and plenty for those not so familiar. The various species look absolutely amazing and are wonderfully varied in size, emotions and whether prey or predator. The life cycles, their strengths and their adversities were fascinating to learn about, was handled seriously but not too much so (the target audience is clear here) and also emotionally investable.

Narration writing is thoughtful and good natured, never sounding juvenile or over complicated. Winston Hibler's narration delivery has always divided those that have watched the True Life Adventures films, personally had no problem with it in all but one. Here it is good natured and even the more deadpan delivery doesn't come over as that monotone.

Concluding, absolutely wonderful. 10/10.