Monday Mystery

Last week's close view



was part of



Ellen D. and Dave were correct with the general idea that it was a mower. Congratulations to Wilma who was spot on identifying it as a robot mower. This one has been trundling round my 'lawn' for 4 hours each day throughout the Summer. It is one of the less complicated ones and therefore relatively cheap. No phone app needed. No GPS. No programming apart from choosing the length of time it needs to run. A wire has to be laid round the perimeter of its work area. It is random in its choice of direction to move and changes each time it reaches the perimeter wire. The wire is held down by dozens of plastic pegs and after a few weeks is invisible to the eye as it sinks in the surface of the ground.

For this week here is a close view



of what? If you would like to make a guess please leave it in the comments. They will be revealed, along with the answer, next Monday. As always, my thanks to all who have go.

Monday Mystery

Last Monday's mystery photo was a top view



of



I'm not sure what sort of chopper Ellen D was thinking of, maybe a pastry cutter, but Adrian was the only one to correctly identify the cheese grater. Well done. My thanks to all who had a go.

From a top view last week to a bottom view of something this week



If you would like to make a guess as to what it is please leave it in the comments. They will be revealed, along with the answer, next Monday.

Monday Mystery

Last week's teaser photo was



A bottom view of



a saucepan though it could just as easily have been a frying pan. Well done to Adrian, Kev Scott, Ellen D, Dave, Ragged Robin and Wilma. Thank you all for having a go. I wonder how many will manage to identify this one:



Please leave any guesses in the comments. They will be revealed, along with the answer, next Monday.

1135 Km/h Pressure Wave

The enormous explosion from the under sea volcano near Tonga caused not only a tsunami across the Pacific but also a pressure wave in the atmosphere which sped right round the Earth. The speed of the pressure wave was estimated to be about 1135 Km/h by Sandy Macdonald in a post on Twitter. Many weather watchers, amateur and professional, noticed the sudden drop in pressure as the effect passed over their locality - mine included:



a steadily dropping air pressure all day with a sudden change at 7.14 p.m. local time. The same person predicted that a second wave would be detected about 2 a.m. local time resulting from the pressure wave travelling in the opposite direction. (Think about the way ripples travel in a pond when a pebble in dropped in the water.) From this morning's pressure readings here it certainly looks as though he was correct:



There definitely appears to be a sudden drop at 1.49 a.m. local time. It looks a deeper drop but the scales are different on the two graphs.

Monday Mystery

Last week's cose up



was correctly identified as



being part of a pair of gloves with non-slip / grip enhancing plastic dots. (Called Keep Safe Pick and Go PVC Dotted Glove.) Lightweight, comfortable and useful for getting a better grip on hand tools and for holding on to shiny objects. Well done to Adrian and Ragged Robin and my thanks to all who 'had a go'.

I wonder what you will make of this week's mystery close up?



As always, pease leve any guesses in the comments. They will be revealed, along with the answer, next Monday.

Close Encounter of the Bird Kind

On checking for any recordings from the nest box camera I see that this little enquirer made a very quick four second visit.





Those are screen shots from the very short piece of video. Am I correct in thinking this was a Wren?

Monday Mystery

How time flies! It must be a year since I last had some mystery objects for you to try to identify. Hopefully I can keep finding things to keep it going for this year. Let's start the new year with this close shot of .....



..... what? As in previous years please leave any guesses in the comments. I will reveal them and the answer next Monday.

New Year's Resolution

Yesterday, on the last day of 2021, I finally got round to carrying out a resolution I made nearly twelve months ago. I had been wanting to fix up a nestbox with a camera inside. Something I did many years ago for a couple of breeding seasons. That camera was only black and white. It was wired all the way from the end of the garden to this room so I could record any activity. I hankered for colour and wireless transmission. A few weeks ago I experimented with the camera I had used in the Hedgehog house to see whether that would work.



I removed the stand and fixed it facing down looking through a hole in the top part of the box. After a soak test running it in the conservatory for about ten days all seemed OK so I fixed up the nestbox in place of the one I cleared out a short while ago.



It may look a little strange as most of it is new(ish) but I had mislaid the section with the entrance hole so I used the one from the old box. This box is designed for a camera and has a 'window' on one side to let a bit of light in which enables the camera to record in colour during the day. The box is positioned so Sunlight doesn't shine directly on it.



View the camera sees though it makes the inside of the nestbox look tattier than it really is.



The camera detects movement and records automatically to an SD card. That can be accessed from an app on my phone and any interesting activity downloaded. I'm not sure yet about the focus as it is fixed and once a nest is built the focus may be a tad on the soft side. Only time will tell.

All I need now is for a Blue Tit or Great Tit to make a New Year Resolution to use the nestbox as a Winter roost and then build a nest.