Happy New Year

Wishing you all a .....



and a speedy return to the old normal.

Not so Hot

A few days ago I showed this thermal photo:



There were some good guesses as to what the camera was looking at. It was this:



The mantle piece and chimney breast above my gas fire. I was interested to see what sort of temperature was reached by the brickwork. By way of comparison these are the temperatures in the fire itself:

Seeing is Believing?

Not always when it comes to published photographs!
Popping my head outside the front door this morning I was greeted by a lovely Sunrise tinted sky:



That is the view I would like to have seen. What the camera actually saw was:



Thank goodnes for Affinity Photo. With several strokes using the Inpainting brush the intrusive telephone pole and wires disappear.

A Short Greeting

Feeling the Heat

Not really much to photograph outdoors these days. When it isn't raining it's foggy or thick mist. Even when I can't see any mist I can still feel the spots of moisture on my face and hands when I go for an amble round the village. To warm things up I took this shot indoors with the Seek thermal camera plugged in the iPhone. Can you work out what I was aiming at?



I will give the answer later in the week.

Eat, Argue and Bathe

You don't have to see them to know a flock of Starlings has arrived at the bird feeders. Between eating and bathing they seem to spend the rest of time maintaining the pecking order - very loudly.



Never a dull moment when they are about.

Nestbox Cleanout Time

An email from Simon King Wildlife reminded me it was time to check the bird nestboxes and clean out any old nests ready for the next seasons of Winter roosting and Spring nest building. I have two nestboxes fixed to the back wall of a shed. The first of these is a modern type of concrete mixture:



Once the two clips were turned and the front removed I could see that this box hadn't been used at all, empty apart from a dead bumblebee I brushed out.



The other box is a traditional wooden design:



The only creatures I had seen visiting it last Summer were bees so I carefully unscrewed the two front panels expecting to find some sort of hive or bumblebee nest. I was not expecting to see:



Interesting as the bottom layer of the nest was composed of twig like pieces from nearby fir trees. Not something I have seen before. Here it is once I had removed it from the nestbox:



It seems to be a finished nest as the top layer is moss but as it was little compacted in the centre I doubt that any eggs were laid let alone any chicks hatched. It wouldn't be the first time bees seem to have driven out a nesting bird.