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.

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.

Juveniles - Great Spotted Woodpecker and House Sparrow

A few days ago when I looked at John's site (Hedgeland Tales) and read about the Great Spotted Woodpecker I left a comment that I had only seen one in my garden, at least a year ago and only a quick glimpse. Well - an hour or so later you could have knocked me down with a feather. From my kitchen window I can see the top of a telephone pole which is just past the end of my garden. There are foot rests near the top for workmen to rest on and I saw a bird fly to one of those. Most birds will land on the metal bracket but this bird landed on the wooden pole. Gradually it made its way to the top and stayed long enough for me to get my second look at a Great Spotted Woodpecker.





Update: My thanks to Adrian and Jan for pointing out that this was a female not a juvenile. I must learn to turn the music volume down when trying to identify things, maybe I'll concentrate then!

From time to time some of the seed scattered from the feeders self sets like this corn. Some I let grow to see if any birds will eat the seeds. This morning it was an adventurous juvenile House Sparrow which decided to investigate it.





You can make out the 'baby' yellow at the back of the beak, especially in the first photo.

Of Swifts and Woodpeckers

Yesterday morning when I went through to the kitchen I saw what I thought was a tatty looking Starling with a lot of white on its feathers. As I concentrated I saw the flash of red on its head and it slowly dawned on me that I was looking at a Greater Spotted Woodpecker enjoying a peanut breakfast. By the amount of red on its head it would appear to have been a juvenile. Unfortunately it spotted me as soon as I moved the camera to take a shot and it was gone in a flash. This is the first woodpecker I have seen in the garden and in fact the first I have seen for over fifty years. I am now hoping it returns so I can get a bit of video for the record.

Some days ago when I was sat in the garden watching the birds flying about I noticed a small group of Swifts. What surprised me was the height at which they were flying. A couple of times they were circling the same patch of sky, obviously taking advantage of a thermal to gain even more height.



I could only get some fuzzy shots of them as, at the height they were flying, the images were very small sections in the photo frame. I sat and watched them for about half an hour as they swooped around the sky at a fair old speed. I assume that there must be plenty of high flying insects for them to feed on.

The only other birds seen in the sky that day, apart from the local bird visitors, were a couple of seagulls heading inland.



Also spotted a couple of times at night, but still evading the camera, has been a Tawny Owl which uses the nearby telegraph poles as a perch.

No sign of the Hedgehogs for a few nights. I assume they are back on the late shift.