More Bird Feeder Visitors

The soundtrack was recorded at a different time using a small wav / mp3 recorder
50p coin for scale.



Most of the bird sounds, including the clicking, were made by Starlings.

Visitors to the new Bird Table

It didn't take long for the locals to start using the new bird table.
First brave soul was a Robin:


Others included.....
Dunnock:


female Blackbird:


Starling:


Great Tit:


and Chaffinch


I also noticed a Blue Tit but it was too fast for me. There were plenty of House Sparrows but they seemed to prefer the hanging feeder under the bird table.

Title was created with the Mac app Art Text 3 and the FeatheredFlight font.

Friday at the Flicks - Chaffinch and Robin

Nothing out of the ordinary going on so here are a couple of the regulars:



The Blackbirds are becoming very bold, though not quite tame yet. A few are usually within a few feet of me when I top up the feeders. After our frosty early morning walk I was taking Penny's harness off and a female Blackbird waited on top of the fence right next to us. As we walked round to the back door the Blackbird kept up with me, walking along the top of the fence. I must get round to trying hand feeding it to see what happens.

I haven't seen anything investigate either of the camera nest boxes as yet.

Wings on Wednesday

Yesterday I moved the bird table camera and angled it a bit to get a better view of visitors.

A Male Chaffinch at 6.45 a.m.:




Starlings don't have a definite song. That is not to say they are silent, far from it. They never seem to shut up. Actually they are very good mimics and can copy the sounds of other birds and environmental noise like burglar alarms though they don't seem to do that very often these days.

Another thing they do can only be described as rapid beak clicking as can be seen in these video clips taken yesterday: (chirping Sparrows in the background)



They can also produce some quite low frequencies, which I failed to video.

Kermit's Cousin and a new Bird Table Camera

Having a last look round the back garden last night I spotted a common frog just waiting to have its portrait taken:






Yesterday the new camera arrived for the Bird Table. It is definitely an improvement in quality. The only problem is it is not quite as wide angle as the old one. Looks as though the Round Tuit now has a new entry - build a taller Bird Table to get the camera a bit further away from the birds and angle it to give a part side view.

The video is in two parts
1st  Old Camera - A juvenile Robin stood on the seeds but hoping to be fed.
2nd  New Camera - visiting male Chaffinch:



The camera is not waterproof so I hope the table roof is as it is purposefully precipitating at the moment.

Great Tit Nest Box:  There has been no adult roosting with the babies for three nights. I'm not sure what is going on.  We have lost two of the babies. Maybe a shortfall of food or too much competition from the strongest or possibly got too cold over night. Only six active beaks now when an adult arrives with food. So far the survivors are looking healthy. Not all the hatchlings survived last year.

Chaffinch

Just a bit of experimenting while I find the apps I want to have on the MacBook. This was composed with the free version of Composure which has choices of layouts, drag and drop photos, background, zoom in and some ability to choose the 'look' of each photo:



The result looks darker once uploaded to Flickr, seems to be a common 'feature'.

It has taken a while to copy somewhat over 300GB of photos, videos and other files from the PC to an external USB3 drive so I can access them from the MacBook.  Worth the effort as it also gave me the opportunity to tidy up some of the folders and bin or ignore some of the dross.

Dive Straight In

I always have the 70D set to burst shooting. A few days ago I was hoping to catch a sequence of shots when a bird visited the Birdy Bistro. The lighting conditions were poor but I did manage to catch the following sequence as a male Chaffinch dived in to grab a seed:

Choose a porthole


Line up with it


Apply the air brakes to slow down


Head first in to the seeds


The Chaffinch had no intention of landing on the perch.
They often fly close, hover, dive in and leave again as soon as they have grabbed a seed.

The Invisible Perch

Chaffinch coming in to land on the seed feeder looks as though it is sat on an invisible perch:

Which Seed Shall I Eat Next?

Plenty of small bird activity around the Birdy Bistro yesterday when temperature reached a maximum of 6C with an over night wind chill of -3C. Cold breeze but beautiful clear Sunny sky.

House Sparrow


Coal Tit


Blue Tit


Great Tit


Robin


Chaffinch


All photos taken with the Canon 40D with 100-400mm zoom lens and cropped.

Friday at the Flicks - Collared Dove + Safe Cage

A while ago some Wood Pigeons found they could scrape through a gap through the wire mesh to feed on the Bird Table so I made the gap smaller. It didn't take the Collared Doves long to work out that the gap was still large enough for them to gain access.



About two years ago I looked at the commercial ground cages which allow smaller birds to feed but keep out the larger ones. I decided to throw together my own version but the birds didn't take to it when it was on the ground. A few days ago I decided to give it another try out. This time it is about a yard above ground and next to bushes.



It took a very short time for a Chaffinch to investigate and it has been constantly visited since.




Next job, if it ever stops raining, (10 continuous days with rain so far) is to rebuild it to fit the size and shape of the plastic tray which should raise the base where the camera can get a better view of the visitors. So far only finch size birds have entered, usually in the side and out through the top. Wood Pigeons have tried to get their heads in but the food is in the middle. At last the small ground feeders can get their share of the food in peace.

Wings on Wednesday (2) - Levitating Chaffinch

Couldn't resist this:

Friday at the Flicks - Chaffinch Song, No Hands Bread Eating, Pheasant

A bit more birdy activity captured this week. To begin with, after days of trying to find a Chaffinch which had spent many hours singing I managed to capture this bit of video:



Yesterday I was laughing out loud as I watched a Wood Pigeon with a piece of bread which had fallen from the feeder where I put it for the corvids. In its energetic tries to pull small pieces to eat the bread was flying all over the place: A corvid would have stood on the bread to hold it still.



I think I have a friend for life. When I see the Pheasant in the garden I go out and throw a few peanuts on the grass for it. Yesterday I did that twice and each time it moved a short distance away from me. On a third occasion I took some stuff out to put in the recycle bin. This time the Pheasant came rushing over to me expecting more food.  In this clip it is swallowing one of the peanuts. I have seen it do this in the past when a peanut is only just big enough for it to eat. (no sound on this clip)



All this week's video were shot using an Hitachi DVC Cam.

The Difficulty of Predicting Auroras.
Yesterday the strong CME (Coronal Mass Ejection / Solar flare) from the Sun did hit the Earth's magnetic field. It did not spark off the possible widespread auroras we had hoped for. Why? There is a good explanation on the NASA site.
Imagine the Earth's magnetic field as a bar magnet. The cloud of charged particles from the Sun also acts like a bar magnet. If both of these imaginary bar magnets are the same way round there is a small disturbance to the Earth's magnetic field resulting in some aurora activity near the Earth's poles. If they are the opposite way round to each other then there can be a large effect resulting in magnetic storms and auroras over a much greater area of the Earth. Although the strength of a solar flare can be measured as it leaves the Sun, the direction of the magnetic field (which way round the bar magnet will be) is not known until it arrives here so it is difficult to predict how widespread auroras will be.

There may be a chance tonight - strong magnetic variations have been detected by the Lancaster University magnetometer in Crooktree, Scotland since about 06.30 GMT Let's hope they continue until tonight.

Friday at the Flicks - Night Activity, Chaffinch, Wren

There is usually plenty of Hedgehog activity most nights. They don't stay for long on their travels and some may return several times. This is all the visits the camera captured a couple of nights ago, speeded up to keep the length and file size down.



A male Chaffinch sat on a tree next door singing in the sunshine. Some wind noise unfortunately.



When I took the still shots of the Wren building its nest in a roosting popcket I was also able to take some short pieces of video. You will have to look hard at times as only the beak can be seen. Sorry the last part was out of focus.


Have a great weekend observing the wildlife where ever you are.

Feathered Visitors to the Pond

As it was a dry day, mostly, on Monday I again set up the 350D and the home brew IR detector to automatically photograph any birds which visited the garden pond waterfall. The IR detector goes near the waterfall and the camera on its tripod is set up at the opposite end of the pond. Once they have been in place a short while the birds carry on visiting as usual.

Wood Pigeon


Collared Doves


Male Blackbird


Starlings can be guaranteed to have a good splash about


My favourite of this batch:
Female Blackbird - shall I have a drink, have a bath or continue nest building?


Slightly out of focus range, a male Chaffinch looking dapper in his mating plumage.


Wet and windy today so the auto setup will have to wait until the weather settles for the next attempt.

Friday at the Flicks - Nest Box, Hedgehog, Chaffinch

As ever there is plenty of tooing and froing from the Great Tits. No signs of nest building as yet but at least they are still both interested. The box is still used as a roost every night by one of the birds. A couple of times each day they will both briefly enter the box though much of the time one will wait outside on the fence in the background. That is also the time one of the birds does a bit of housekeeping, removing droppings and discarded feathers.





Most nights at least one, and sometimes two, Hedgehogs visit. Sometimes one will arrive soon after it gets dark but most visits are between 1 and 5 in the mornings.



There are a lot of Chaffinches visiting the feeders and searching for food on the lawn. This was by way of another practice in getting used to panning with the weight of the XL2 which is a hefty camera but at least I have now worked out the balance point for mounting it on the tripod.



Hope you enjoyed the short  video clips. Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you. I shall spend the day contemplating being another year closer to my seventh decade.

Friday at the Flicks - Sparrowhawk, Sunlit Starlings, Dunnock, Finches

I was just setting up a different lens combination when I spotted a Sparrowhawk sat just past the end of my garden having a good look round.



Starlings can look so dull and uninteresting until the sunlight catches them to show how their feathers can be multi coloured.



One or two Dunnocks are regular visitors to the Birdy Bistro. Sometimes they visit the bird table but more often they are searching in the shadows. This was the first time I used a new tripod with a fluid head so it was in the way of being a test shoot.



Finally there is always fun and games when Greenfinches and Chaffinches want to use the same feeder.



Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you.

Bird Table Visitors

Yesterday I set up my IR passive detector next to the bird table to see what was visiting. The camera was on a tripod in the kitchen. I am always hopeful that it will capture something new - not yet though. Just plenty of the regulars.



Lighting conditions for photography were awful for most of the time and the results grainy so I combined some of the half decent in one collage. The 350D with 70-200mm lens took over 300 shots but most ended up in Dusty Bin..



I was surprised how often the Robin appeared in the shots as I rarely see it on the table.

Friday at the Flicks - Garden Bird Visitors, A Modern Scarecrow

A bit of a dearth of new video at the moment as the birds are eating less from the feeders during this mild spell and the dull grey skies are not conducive to clear photography. Anyway here are some of the birds which came to eat this week.

Starling
Goldfinch
Coal Tit
Great Tit, Tree Sparrow, Male Chaffinch, more Tree Sparrows



 Something I have been meaning to video for quite a while is a bird scarer / modern scarecrow which seems to do a decent job on a local vegetable patch. It doesn't really show well on the clip but the 'head' is made up of different sections some of which are holograms which really glitter as it turns round in the wind.



Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you.

Friday at the Flicks (Chaffinch, Coal Tit, Magpies)

Some birds don't let a bit of rain get in the way of eating. This Chaffinch spent most of its time just waiting for a space at the feeders.



As usual at this time of the year the Coal Tits are gathering as many black sunflower seeds as possible to bury as they build up their winter store. (No sound on this one)



One for sorrow
Two for joy
Three for a girl
Four for a boy
Five for a secret never to be told
Magpie



I have removed the general seed feeders for a while and moved the Goldfinch feeders to a different part of the garden. A few days ago I saw what looked like a Greenfinch suffering from finch disease so I want to make sure it doesn't spread quickly through the visiting population. There are still peanut and fat ball feeders as the finches rarely, if ever, visit those.

Have a great weekend watching the antics of the wildlife around you.

At the Seed Feeder

Yesterday I tried the IR detector about five feet away from a seed feeder. One thing I learned - as the feeder warms up in the sunshine and starts to swing in the breeze it triggers the sensor. Once the feeder was in shadow or the wind clamed down then it worked OK.

Chaffinch coming in to land:



Most of the photos were of birds, mainly sparrows, peacefully feeding but the arrival of Starlings usually livens things up a bit.

Are you my Dad?


Keep moving pal.


Go find your own perch.


Where is Air Traffic Control when you need them?


 I wonder how long a camera battery lasts when it needs recharging every day.