Brilliant sunny day today so we had a trip to Covenham Reservoir in the afternoon.
Still sorting the photos and video from that.
When I saw a couple of bats hunting round my garden tonight I tried to get a short piece of video using the Nikon Coolpix S9050 hand held. Not a lot of light about at 9.30 p.m. No sound:
Showing posts with label Bat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bat. Show all posts
Sunday, 2 August 2015
Friday, 14 May 2010
Friday at the Flicks (Bread, Blackbird, Tadpoles) + some batty sounds
A few days ago I put out a small piece of bread to see which bird would be the first to notice it.
I make no apologies for yet another video of a Blackbird singing. This time I managed to get a clear view of a local singing in broad daylight. Usually they are camera shy.
Last weekend I managed to get to an aquatic centre and pick up a new tub of Koi floating sticks for the tadpoles. During the cold weather I thought that only a few of them had survived but as soon as the Sun comes out dozens of them can been seen in the nursery pond.
At dusk yesterday I noticed a bat or two flitting round the Leylandii next door so I dug out the bat detector to see if I could pick up any of their echo location sounds. Not a brilliant recording as it took a while for me to tune in to them and then they moved on. Also I had it too loud and the recording was very hissy so I spent a while with GoldWave processing the file. At the same time I was able to cut out the long sections where no bat was within range.
Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you. I must spend some time catching up on other blogs. I am well behind as this seems to have been a busy week.
I make no apologies for yet another video of a Blackbird singing. This time I managed to get a clear view of a local singing in broad daylight. Usually they are camera shy.
Last weekend I managed to get to an aquatic centre and pick up a new tub of Koi floating sticks for the tadpoles. During the cold weather I thought that only a few of them had survived but as soon as the Sun comes out dozens of them can been seen in the nursery pond.
At dusk yesterday I noticed a bat or two flitting round the Leylandii next door so I dug out the bat detector to see if I could pick up any of their echo location sounds. Not a brilliant recording as it took a while for me to tune in to them and then they moved on. Also I had it too loud and the recording was very hissy so I spent a while with GoldWave processing the file. At the same time I was able to cut out the long sections where no bat was within range.
Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you. I must spend some time catching up on other blogs. I am well behind as this seems to have been a busy week.
Sunday, 26 April 2009
I'm Going Batty in my Old Age
Yesterday I had a look at Snowbabies blog entry Bats and was intrigued by the piece of video of the bats hunting round the garden. Also I had visited Urban Extension - The Weird and Wonderful World of Bat Noises last month.
There used to be a regular bat visitor or two to my garden which hunted every evening towards dusk. I had long wanted something to enable me to hear the sounds they make so last year I bought a Magenta Bat4 detector. I saw and heard one bat for about 2 seconds the day it arrived and then there was no local activity for the rest of the year.
Bat4 detector with Sony dictaphone
This year I am pleased to say that there has been regular activity though they rarely come in to my garden as yet. Not many moths around here at the moment. One bat does regularly hunt just past the end of my garden towards dusk. There was a bit of daylight left so first I set the camera to the highest ISO speed it would dial, fixed the focus and tried to get a photo. This is about the best of the few I took.
Out of focus as it was hard to estimate how far away it would be. Also it moves so darned fast the shutter speed was still on the slow side for a good capture. Daylight was fading fast and the brightest light was from a solar powered lantern near the end of the garden. My favourite as it gives quite a realistic flicker.
Now was the time to try for a sound recording so I got out the bat detector and a Sony dictaphone in an attempt to record the bat hunting. Click here for a bit of the recording. The white noise (hiss) is from the detector as, with the bat being so far away, I had to turn up the volume but the clicks from the bat are quite clear. I don't know whether I had the detector set for the correct frequency, it being set about 47KHz. I shall experiment more over future nights. I am fairly sure that what we have here are Pipistrel Bats. Certainly it was one of those which flew in the back door and ended up in my bedroom a few years ago. I had to call on a friend to help get it out again as being that close to it was not my idea of fun.
Missed Opportunity
While I was waiting for a bat to make an appearance I noticed a dark lump towards the top of the telegraph pole just past the end of my garden. I was trying to work out what it could be when it moved and then took flight and swooped down and out of sight. Although it was just a dark shape against a dull sky I had just missed an opportunity to photograph one of the local owls. All I could make out was that it seemed quite a bit larger than a Barn Owl. It had been perched on one of the metal foot holds you see near the top of the poles. If that is a regular perch then I must keep an eye out for any future opportunities.
There used to be a regular bat visitor or two to my garden which hunted every evening towards dusk. I had long wanted something to enable me to hear the sounds they make so last year I bought a Magenta Bat4 detector. I saw and heard one bat for about 2 seconds the day it arrived and then there was no local activity for the rest of the year.
Bat4 detector with Sony dictaphone
 |
| From MIDMARSH JOTTINGS |
This year I am pleased to say that there has been regular activity though they rarely come in to my garden as yet. Not many moths around here at the moment. One bat does regularly hunt just past the end of my garden towards dusk. There was a bit of daylight left so first I set the camera to the highest ISO speed it would dial, fixed the focus and tried to get a photo. This is about the best of the few I took.
Out of focus as it was hard to estimate how far away it would be. Also it moves so darned fast the shutter speed was still on the slow side for a good capture. Daylight was fading fast and the brightest light was from a solar powered lantern near the end of the garden. My favourite as it gives quite a realistic flicker.
Now was the time to try for a sound recording so I got out the bat detector and a Sony dictaphone in an attempt to record the bat hunting. Click here for a bit of the recording. The white noise (hiss) is from the detector as, with the bat being so far away, I had to turn up the volume but the clicks from the bat are quite clear. I don't know whether I had the detector set for the correct frequency, it being set about 47KHz. I shall experiment more over future nights. I am fairly sure that what we have here are Pipistrel Bats. Certainly it was one of those which flew in the back door and ended up in my bedroom a few years ago. I had to call on a friend to help get it out again as being that close to it was not my idea of fun.
Missed Opportunity
While I was waiting for a bat to make an appearance I noticed a dark lump towards the top of the telegraph pole just past the end of my garden. I was trying to work out what it could be when it moved and then took flight and swooped down and out of sight. Although it was just a dark shape against a dull sky I had just missed an opportunity to photograph one of the local owls. All I could make out was that it seemed quite a bit larger than a Barn Owl. It had been perched on one of the metal foot holds you see near the top of the poles. If that is a regular perch then I must keep an eye out for any future opportunities.
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