Spotted Visitors

Just missed taking some still views of a couple of Great Spotted Woodpeckers visiting the feeders. This is a bit of rather grainy surveillance video. I had to zoom in to see the birds. I can't work out whether the first one is a juvenile or female. The adult comes in right near the end just before the automatic recording cut off.

I uploaded the video direct to Blogger instead of using YouTube.

Woodpecker Wednesday

Lovely to see at least one of the juvenile Great Spotted Woodpeckers visits the peanut feeder nearly every day. There is only one at a time so it may be the same one. It is impossible to tell.

Friday at the Flicks - Wren Activity + Juvenile GSW

The Wren spends the occasional night roosting in the roosting pocket. About 10.40 a.m. last Monday morning I spotted activity. The first in daylight hours.  She gave the inside and outside a close look. At one point disappearing behind the pocket. Some of the activity certainly looked like nest building:



Unfortunately there doesn't seem to have been any other activity since then.

As promised here is the video of one of the juvenile Great Spotted Woodpeckers which visited a few days ago. It sat on the fruit cage for a while, went away, came back and slowly got neared the peanut feeder. The video starts where the GSW is trying to reach the peanuts and finally lands on the feeder. This has been the first time I have seen any bird get the better of the Starlings. A quick thrust with that sharp beak made them choose another feeder:



I have only spotted a juvenile once more in the garden.

The Red Tops Visit

I had hoped the frequent visits by the female Great Spotted Woodpecker meant she was feeding a family. Well, 6.20 a.m. on a dull, misty Saturday morning two juveniles were spotted in the garden. Not very good photos as high ISO and small crops means grainy piccies:



A juvenile is easily identified by the red top to its head. At first one made a tentative visit, flew away and then came back to attack the peanut feeder. The second only made a brief visit.



I hope they come back another day when the light is better for some sharper photos.
I did manage some reasonable video which I will probably save for Friday.

Mrs GSW Still Visiting

One or both Great Spotted Woodpeckers could well be visiting the peanut feeder ever day. They stay for such a short while it is pure luck if I happen to see one. Yesterday it was the turn of the female to arrive while I was watching from the kitchen window:



This time I used the basic free version of the Mac app Photohive which puts the photos in cells like they were in a beehive. As you can gather I had a session downloading several free apps which produce different types of collages. It's nice to ring the changes from time to time.

Photos taken with the Canon 70D. ISO set to 5000 as it was still somewhat dull after a morning of heavy rain. Photos enhanced in iPhoto as contrast tends to be rather flat with high settings of ISO.

Mrs Great Spotted Woodpecker

8.15 p.m. went through to the kitchen to brew a cuppa when I saw a flash of feathers as a female Great Spotted Woodpecker landed on one of the peanut feeders. All previous sightings of GSWs have been of a male so it made a change to see Mrs. I had already put the cameras to bed as light levels were poor but quickly grabbed the 70D and whooped the ISO up to 12800 in the hopes of getting a few hand held record shots:







Obviously at that high an ISO the background is very grainy. Especially when I processed them to increase the colour and contrast. At least I was able to confirm it was a female - no red patch on the back of the head. Maybe now male and female are visiting I may get to see one or more juveniles in the near future.

Friday at the Flicks - After the Rain + Woody Returns

Some birds were unsure how to proceed after last Monday's heavy rain shower. Some, like the Stock Dove went in for tentative paddling. Starlings, of course, took advantage of a giant bird bath and the Blackbirds collected the worms driven to the surface:



Fortunately with temperatures reaching the mid 20s C it didn't take long for the surface water to evaporate though the ground is still very soggy under foot.


Woody keeps making regular visits. I notice he doesn't seem to eat the peanuts but flies off with them so I guess he has a hungry brood not too far away.



Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you.

Wet, Wet, Wet + Woody Returns

No, not the Scottish band, my back garden. Teatime yesterday started with distant thunder but so strong it could be felt through the concrete floor in the kitchen. Fortunately the electrical storm passed over without any local problems apart from the electricity supply flickering off from time to time.

That wasn't the worst though. Suddenly the heavens opened with such stair rods of rain and hail the like of which I last saw decades ago as a child. According to my new weather centre the rate of rainfall reached 65mm / hour (2.5 inches / hour). Thank goodness that didn't last for an hour. As it was, 27mm (just over an inch) of rain was recorded in less than an hour.

The lane was a river with water flowing rapidly down from the main street and my back garden ended up about 3/4 under water. That lot was just rainfall and overflow from the gutters which couldn't cope. Normally it takes several hours of persistent rain to flood that much. Fortunately the building, garage and sheds are well above that level.





It had only just dried out after the last rainfall.

Once the rain had moved out to the North Sea Woody made his second visit of the day:



He is becoming quite a regular at the moment.

A bit of very shaky hand held video which iMovie did its best to stabilise:



It really cheered me up to see such a magnificent bird visiting the Birdy Bistro.

Woody Comes Visiting

A rare visit from a Great Spotted Woodpecker:

Woody Returns

It's been one of those days weather wise. A bit of sunshine first thing followed by grey cloud and frequent short, sharp hail showers so it was quite a surprise to see a Great Spotted Woodpecker visit the peanut feeder. The first one I have spotted for weeks:





Shortly after that I noticed it land on the telephone pole just past the end of the garden. It started low down and gradually crept up the pole exploring any cracks in the woodwork. Finally it reached the top and after a quick look round, flew away:

  

If you are watching the live feed from the Great Tit nestbox you may occasionally see that I have had to pause the feed so I can upload photos or videos. You may have to refresh the page to get the feed started again once I have re-started it.

Woody Returns

It seems that the Great Spotted Woodpeckers are making frequent visits to my peanut feeder. Yesterday morning I spotted a male on the feeder and managed a few still shots.

 

You would have had a good laugh if you had seen me on hands and knees crawling over to the video camera to move it further away from the kitchen window. Fortunately the ruse worked and I was able to get some video. Unfortunately the Hitachi DVD cam got its white balance in a twist and the video turned out very blue which I managed to partly correct on the PC. I also managed to take some with the Nikon S9050 which is the last part of this video:



The soundtrack is 'Hunger After Dinner', from an old Protracker module file by Delta X of Fraxion.

Not a Horse Shoe - Visiting Woodpecker

The first Guess What of the year managed to fool a few people. It certainly looked somewhat like a horse shoe in the snow but as ImaBurdie and Wilma worked out it was an impression from the ice spikes on my shoe so they get the first virtual Gold Stars of 2013. Many thanks to all who had a go.

  


No new Guess What for this Monday but I will try to find something for next week.

A pleasant surprise this morning when I spotted a male Great Spotted Woodpecker on the peanut feeder nearest the kitchen window. Lighting was poor and I had to up the ISO to 3200 on the 50D to get even a reasonable shutter speed.







Unfortunately it didn't stay long enough to get any video this time.

Female Great Spotted Woodpecker

Talk about being in the right place at the right time ..... I was literally just positioning the camcorder to video anything of interest attracted by my home made peanut butter feeder when a female Great Spotted Woodpecker arrived. At least, I assume it was a female and not a juvenile. The adult male has a red patch on the back of its neck.

This one stayed for a couple of minutes and was the first bird I have seen see off a Starling which tried to barge in on the act. Just as well as once the Starling brat pack arrives it is difficult for other birds to get a look in.



Audio track was made using the Animoog app on an iPad2
The peanut butter used is specially formulated without salt for feeding to wildlife. Many varieties made for human consumption have added salt which is not good for the birds.
It looks as though I got the length of the log just about right as woodpeckers press their tail feathers against the wood for balance as they cling on.

Great Spotted Woodpecker

The Great Spotted Woodpecker visited later in the day than I expected. So far it doesn't seem to have sampled the peanut butter, just the peanuts. That gave a Blue Tit a chance to visit the log feeder:



So far Blue Tits, Great Tits and Starlings have tried out the log feeder.

Friday at the Flicks - Thief - Woodpecker - Clouds

When I checked the overnight recordings a few days ago I saw that the black, bird killer cat was helping itself to the dried mealworms I scatter around for the visiting hedgehogs:



Yesterday the same cat was hunting a grey wagtail which was wandering too close. Penny and I about turned and wandered back. First the bird flew off and then as we got closer the cat beat a hasty retreat.



A couple of days ago the Great Spotted Woodpecker paid another visit to the peanut feeder at the bottom of the garden. This time I managed to take a few bits of video:





My replacement router arrived and to start with uploads to YouTube seemed to work OK but last night I was having real difficulties but even changing to an old router, which usually works well, there were still very long pauses. In the end I gave up and opened an account with Vimeo. My first test upload went smoothly - another cloud timelapse job:



That one was an experiment to find out how many photos the 4GB card would hold. I reduced the quality on the 360D to medium and set it up to take a shot every 5 seconds. After about one and a half hours I changed the battery in the camera as it was running low. Fortunately the tripod I use allows me to get at the battery compartment without disturbing the camera. The set up kept going for 3hr 41min and took 2652 shots. By that time the space left counter on the camera was down to single figures. The video was produced at 15 frames per second which made for a smoother animation.


Have a great weekend observing nature and wildlife around you.

Wings for Wednesday

It was a pleasure to see an adult Greenfinch at the seed feeder:



Not only that but here are two of the four juveniles which had tagged along:



I do tend to get a bit apprehensive when Greenfinches visit these days as the past three Summers they have brought finch disease to my garden. Let's hope we stay clear this year.

Another juvenile was spotted this week and I hope that this time it really was a juvenile Robin:





Finally - a bit blurry - a return visit by the Great Spotted Woodpecker:

Friday at the Flicks - Woodpecker - Thrush - Young Great Tit

It has been a better week for taking some new video clips. First is the unexpected visit from a Great Spotted Woodpecker helping itself to the peanuts.



On the same morning there was a rare visit to the back garden from a Song Thrush hunting for and finding a snail. Behind the wood is gravel which the thrush is using as its anvil to crack open the snail's shell.



Finally from earlier in the week a young Great Tit on a peanut feeder.



Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you.

Rare Visitor to My Garden

Do you believer in coincidences? Only this week I was looking at Shirl's great photos and video of a Great Spotted Woodpecker family and thinking I have only seen one once in my garden and that was a very brief visit. Early this morning you could have knocked me down with a feather. There on the peanut feeder near the end of the garden was my very own Great Spotted Woodpecker visitor:





Hopefully I also managed to get some video of it. Talk about luck - by the time I had finished the photo session both cameras were flashing warnings that the batteries were nearly exhausted.