Having had a long thunk about my automated twitching I came up with lots of work on this hot Sunny Sunday. I decided to move the waterfall away from the overgrown pond and make a water feature with it. Luckily I had a spare water pump tucked away for a non rainy day.
Reservoir on the left with water and water pump. The water goes through a tube under the waterfall to a water filter. From the filter it is then piped through the imitation barrel and hand pump.
Lots to do yet, when I cool down a bit and get my breath back. The waterfall had lots of old rotting wood underneath for insect homes. Got to move those and fill in the boarding behind the feature. That should give a good still background for the IR movement detector. Finally it will be surrounded by some low log rolls I've had stored away for years. Maybe put a planter in front of it.
One other advantage with this set up - it can be seen from the kitchen window.
Lots of blank photos again when the breeze got up.
Having a long think as I like this way of finding out which birds make fleeting visits.
I will probably move a bird bath to a position where it has a solid, still background.
After a bit of judicious trimming of vegetation and re-positioning the IR detector I set things up again to see what wildlife was visiting for a drink or a quick bath.
Here is the IR detector in place:
I was thinking I had built this a couple of years ago and was astounded when I found out I had originally written about building it ten years ago here (Heath Robinson Strikes Again). While the weather is fine I have left the detector in place so the birds get used to it being there.
A few regulars from Tuesday:
House Sparrows
Female Blackbird
Robin
(must remember to set the camera to manual focus)
Wood Pigeons
At least there were fewer false triggers and empty photos to delete.
Yesterday I set up a camera to take some unattended photos of anything visiting the pool on the pond waterfall. Over 350 shots and only one usable. The IR detector was being triggered by background vegetation wafting about in the breeze.
The mystery? In a couple of shots there is an insect, unfortunately out of focus range.
My first thoughts were cricket or grasshopper but having looked at scores of photos on t'internet I couldn't find one with that colouring and more to the point - nothing with what appears to be an ovipositor that long.
Apologies if some mystery close-ups are getting more difficult.
I am finding it harder to think of new subjects to photograph.
I often don't find something until almost the last minute.
So it was with last week's mystery:
Congratulations to Adrian, Dave and Kev for spotting it was
an insect hotel. This one has been up for several years and never seemed to show the result of any activity apart from spiders' webs. The previous weekend I was idly pulling up a few weeds nearby when I heard constant buzzing. I finally located it near the insect hotel. A mason bee was making repeated trips to the same hotel 'room'. I'm fairly sure this is a Red Mason bee.
I also noticed some of the holes were plugged with dried mud and some were partly open. The closed ones should have mason bee cocoons and the partially open ones are probably where hatched bees have made it out to the wild world.
I also took a short piece of video of the bee when it visited the hotel:
One reason it may have become popular with the bees is that I moved it. It used to be somewhat in the shade but I recently read the mason bee prefers South facing sunny locations which is where it is now. They are common in lowland areas of England and Wales. Seen mainly from April to July. They feed on Spring flowering shrubs and particularly on apple and pear tree blossom (several fruit trees next door) as well as cultivated flowering plants. Instead of having pollen bags on their legs the female Red Mason bee collects it between hairs on her abdomen.
And now, as they say, for something completely different
which is part of ... what?
Think you know? Want to have a guess?
Please leave any guesses in the comments.
They will be revealed, along with the answer, next Monday.
2nd attempt as, believe it or not, YouTube removed the first attempt for ' violating the guidelines'!
Lots of activity at the nestbox on the back of the workshop.
Unfortunately no camera in the box this year.
I set up the 50D on a tripod and left it filming for a few minutes and edited out the waiting times.
The first clip shows both parents visiting at the same time.
P.S. On appeal the original video was re-instated. Then I deleted it anyway.
No point in having two identical videos, albeit with slightly different titles.
The original had the same title as this post so I guess a YouTube bot assumed it must have been 'rude'.
The red cross with the Fleur-de-lis is from the coat of arms of Lincoln, the county town.
The green rectangles represent the agricultural nature of the county.
The blue rectangles represent the sea and the long coastline of Lincolnshire.
Finally the yellow lines refer to Lincolnshire's golden crops and to the fact that Lincolnshire born folk have been known traditionally as 'Yellerbellies'.
When the original idea of having a county flag was discussed it was decided to have a competition so residents could put forward their designs.
After sharing a meal of lamb chops, peas, boiled spuds, green beans and carrots we took advantage of the eased rules for exercising outdoors. First time in what feels like years we went for an after tea walk down the lane. To finish off a welcome, though definitely chilly, walkabout there was a beautiful rainbow.
As the power supply for my transmitters resides under the desk I have a separate volt meter so I can check that all is working as it should. My old LED one had some failed LEDs so I bought a cheap LCD one to replace it. The bare unit needed something to hold it in place so after 30 mins in TinkerCad I came up with:
The instruction were copied to Ultimaker Cura to produce a file for the 3D printer.
Unit rotated to print face down. No supports needed that way round.
2hr 34 minutes later it was ready to fit the meter:
Had to do a bit of minor filing as the hole was about 0.5mm too small but soon it was mounted, wired up and connected:
Towards the end of last month I invested in a new transmitter.
This one works on three different amateur radio bands and has more power that the ones I had been using. Last Sunday I spent the day re-erecting most of the yagi beam aerials I used to have on the mast.
The radio and the aerials allow me to work on the 2m, 73cm and 23cm bands. The latter is one of the microwave bands. The 55 element aerial for that is at the very top of the mast. Using 23cm depends very much on atmospheric conditions. They were nearly right for me to work a Danish station last night but alas conditions changed before we could make a full exchange of information.
On the way back after dropping the car off for its MOT and service this morning I cut through the churchyard. I retraced part of the journey along a footpath we often take on our walkabouts.
Taken, hand held, with my iPod running the free app Hyperlapse.
It did its best to smooth out the video but still somewhat jerky in places.
Partly as it looks as though it was trying to re-focus.
Partly as I had to keep a looking down for tangled roots on the earth footpath.
