The Reds Have Made It

A reminder that in 2018 I had a bare stump after a very learge Leylandi had been felled and I planted a couple of Virginia Creeper plants hoping for a colourful display in the future.



Last October it looked like this:



Last week I took this photo:



Lovely Autumn colours. Not only covering the whole stump but trying to take over the surrounding fence panels as well.

Then There Were Two

About a week ago the camera covering the bird feeders recorded some night visits from a very unwelcome visitor. The sort with brown fur and a very long tail. Fascinating watching the ease with which a rat can climb up a vertical post. Needless to say I then started to put the feeders away each night and provide Mr Ratty with his own special food safely positioned under a shed. After a few days I could see it had taken the bait and I disposed of one ex rat. Hopefully things are back to normal now.

On the more welcome front I see there are now two Magpies visiting the feeders. They are not very tolerant of other birds trying to feed at the same time. At about 3min 15sec in you can see how one deals with a Wood Pigeon.



Most of the bird sounds seem to be coming from Starlings who are not happy at having to wait their turn.

Callistemon Seed Pods

Haven't been on here much recently. Firstly the Hospital has been catching up on Consultant outpatient appointments so I had three visits in ten days. They seem satisfied with my progress and the next appointment should be in about four months time. Secondly I've been making amateur radio contacts around the world on the HF bands as conditions seem to be excellent. So good my low power, simple set up managed to make contact with four Japanese radio hams this morning. Not something I can usually manage.

My Callistemon (bottle brush plant) produced another good display of its unusual red flowers. In the Summer they looked like this:



Once the flowers have faded the seed pods can be seen:



I thought this would make an interesting subject for a focus stacked closer view:



That was a stack of 20 photos taken using my home built automated unit. The following photo was taken some time ago:



Once the photos had been transferred to the laptop they were processed with Helicon Focus which used the sharp, in focus, parts of each photo and combined those bits to buid the final macro photo.