Wren Inspects Nestbox

A Wren has inspected the nestbox two days running.



This is a Birdfy nestbox which has two cameras so I can see birds ariving and leaving as well as any interior activity. It looks as though the Wren removed a dead fly while it was there.

Hello Jenny

As I looked out of the kitchen window I could see the familiar darting motion of a small Jenny Wren. They don't spend much time in the open, usually moving rapidly from cover to cover while searching for spiders and insects to eat. I only had the Nikon, hand held, set to full zoom as I tried several time to get a snapshot. Luckily the Wren spent a short while in the open.





Even with full zoom I had to make small crops. As far as I can gather the Wren is the third smallest British resident bird weighing about the same as a £1 coin.

Some You Capture, Some You Don't .....

.... photographs that is.

I suspect this photo of a Peacock butterfly taken about a week ago will be the last flutter I will capture this year now night temperatures are regularly down to single figures.



On our mid morning walkabout I had an Alice in Wonderland experience. I had decided that, despite the low temperature, as the Sun was out and the sky blue we would take the extra detour through the back of the village churchyard. Just as we arrived near the back of the church I spotted something brilliant white bounding through the unkempt older section of the graveyard. By its general shape and the way it moved I could swear it was a white rabbit. As is usual with many sightings like this it was in view such a short while. Penny hadn't noticed it at all.

As we ambled past the church building there was something we both saw and watched. A female Muntjac deer was slowly walking across the far side of the newer graveyard section. I suspect that was the first one Penny had ever seen. She just stood still, her gaze following its every move. Unfortunately as soon as I decided to get the little Nikon out from under two warm layers of clothing it had vanished from view.

With the colder mornings and freshly filled bird feeders more varieties are visiting the garden. A couple of Starlings have discovered the fat balls. How long before they invite the rest I wonder. A Great Tit is once again a regular along with dozens of House Sparrows. I noticed a Coal Tit making frequent visits to grab Sunflower hearts to take and hide in various parts of the garden.

Finally a couple of hurried shots of a Wren:





Time to put up a couple more feeders and see what we can attract.

Friday at the Flicks - Wren Gathering Nesting Material

 

I only managed less than 10 seconds of hurried video.
This has been slowed down to a bit less than half speed:



Yesterday also saw the first fledglings of the year visit the garden.
Photos tomorrow.

The Climbing Wren

I often see a Wren hopping around the garden investigating all the planters looking for food but this is the first time I have seen one walk up a vertical pole, in this case a bamboo cane.





I only had time for a couple of hurried shots as Wrens don't stay in one place for very long. It would have been great to have videoed it as it walked straight up the cane without any effort.

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.

Friday at the Flicks - Roosting Again + Bottoms Up + Panorama Experiment

After an absence of six nights the Wren spent another night sleeping in the roosting pocket.




Walking past a tub filled with Pinks in full bloom I noticed how deep the Bumble Bees had to go to get at the nectar. Good for the plant as it forces the hairy bee to brush against the pollen which will get carried to other plants to fertilise the embryonic seeds.



Some flowers are easier than others for a large Bumble Bee to gain entrance to the nectar.  Phil Gates in his blog Cabinet of Curiosities has just explained with beautiful close up photos how hard they have to work to get in the flowers of the Foxglove. See Bumblebees and the Foxglove Challenge.


Yet another experiment. The iMovie Mac app has a zoom facility called the Ken Burns effect which allows me to very easily fix a start point and size along with a finish point and size to give zoom and / or pan effects to movies or stills. This experiment started with one of my old panorama shots taken with the iPhone:



Pasted in iMovie and the Ken Burns crop / zoom effect applied to give a panned video view across the still picture:





I will have to take some more detailed panoramas around the area and see how they look as pseudo videos.

Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you.

Roosting Wren

Last night you could have knocked me down with a feather. Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of movement on the camera monitor. There was a Wren approaching the roosting pocket:



The Wren went straight in the pocket so she may well have investigated it some time in the past without me noticing.  I had moved that pocket in the hopes that some small bird would use it in the Winter as an overnight shelter and wasn't expecting any takers in the Summer.  A few years ago a Wren built a nest in another pocket and then abandoned it so we will have to see whether this one becomes a nesting site.

Friday at the Flicks - Nest Box Investigations + Wren

I had just read Shirl's post about the Blue Tits which nested in her camera nest box (HERE) when I decided to have a look at the feed from my camera nest box. Within a minute a Great Tit entered and spent a while examining the inside. In fact I saw it do this twice. Last year a pair of Great Tits successfully raised a brood in the box so I am hoping for a repeat performance this year but only time will tell.

The second investigation: (silent video)



Here is a reminder of last year's activity:



During the week I spotted a wren in the garden. The video has been slowed down a bit as they do rush about and it wasn't a very long clip: (silent video)



Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you wherever you are.

Extra - Baldy the Great Tit:
This morning a pair of Great Tits investigated the camera nest box. It was very noticeable that one had a lot of feathers missing from its head. This possibly occurred during a fight as I have seen Great Tits fight to protect a favoured nesting site:

Wings on Wednesday - Hunting Wren

Yesterday morning I spotted a Wren (Troglodytes troglodytes) searching round the front of the Greenhouse. My apologies for the grainy shots but lighting was difficult at the time:

I spy with my little eye - something beginning with S:


As I thought - a nice juicy spider:


Let go of that web:


Got you:


Burp - pardon, manners:

Wren in Residence

It looks as though the Wren is now nesting in the roosting pocket. It is too dark to see inside so from time to time I have taken a flash photo from about fifteen feet away. Up to yesterday there was nothing to be seen inside. The last photo showed a somewhat blurry occupant which looks to me like the feathers of the Wren.



It is impossibe to focus inside the pouch as it is in complete darkness and I don't want to disturbe Mrs Wren if she is now hatching a few wrenlets.

Friday at the Flicks - Stock Dove, Singing Wren, Hedgehogs Sharing

I was beginning to think a new PC was going to be the next expense. It may be yet as it took a lot to get it started this morning. Also the USB hub is playing up and a new one I bought stops everything from working. Don't you just love computers.

Anyway - on with the show.

Every morning for quite a while now there has been a pair of stock doves feeding in the garden. I guess they are nesting fairly close by. I did manage a bit of video of one of them the other morning. Better sunlight would have made those neck feathers really glint.



I haven't seen any activity in the Wren nest since it was finished. This morning though, when I opened the shed door, I'm sure I saw both wrens fly from the roosting pouch so there may yet be some wrenlets later in the year. One is often singing from one of three vantage points around the garden and the other day I managed some video taken through a far from clean window.



I am going to have to buy, or make, a 'sprung' mount for the microphone as it picks up too much motor noise.

A few nights ago a couple of Hedgehogs were spotted feeding peacefully together which seems to be a rare event, here anyway.




Just as I was about to pack the camera away last night there were two hogs at the feeding station. This time I thought I was finally going to video them mating. The male nearly managed it and that piece of video will have to wait for another day.

Have a great holiday weekend observing the wildlife near you.

Friday at the Flicks - Tadpoles, Wood Pigeon, Wren

Not the best of days today. Spent ages trying to beat a WiFi PCI card into submission, waited in for three days now for a delivery which seems to have gone AWOL and watched paint dry while the video clips uploaded to YouTube. Anyway, got there in the end though it took a while for my remaining grey cell to work out what YouTube had done with the 'embed' facility. Now I have to click on the 'share' button which then reveals the 'embed' button. Why do the encoders at these places have to keep messing about and making it more difficult to use?

The last time I filmed the tadpoles in the nursery pond was on the 2nd of this month when they were skinny little things with large external gills. This morning I filmed them again. They have matured well in the past two weeks and are now large enough to enjoy eating floating Koi sticks as well as all the algae they are scraping off everything in the nursery pond.



 This morning I saw a Wood Pigeon sat on the ivy growing the other side of my fence and having a grand tuck in to the ripe berries.



Finally, also seen this morning,  a Wren sat on top of my artificial wagon wheel having a very energetic preening session. It may appear to be speeded up but it is actually filmed at normal speed. To give an idea of the size of a Wren to those who are not familiar with them - the wood of the wheel is about 2 inches (50mm) wide.



Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you.

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.

A Wren in the Pocket

Several times I have tried, and failed, to capture any photos of the Great Tit at the nest box. Each time I have gone down the garden and found cover to observe the box I have noticed a Wren in that area. Today I saw her fly up to one of the roosting pockets which hang on the side of my shed. You could have knocked me down with a feather.



Can you see what I could see?
Have a closer look.



Lots of moss.  The Wren had disappeared inside. I waited patiently and after a short while she appeared at the entrance.





After making sure the coast was clear she flew down to the area behind the greenhouse where I keep all my garden junk.



It is right next to the shed and the grass round there has plenty of moss so she doesn't have far to go to gather more material.





I'm looking forward to future developments. The beauty is I can see that roosting pocket from the kitchen window so I can keep an eye on things without disturbing her.

Bath Time for a Wren

For the first time this year I set up the 350D and the home brew IR sensor to take some photographs of any birds visiting the waterfall on the garden pond. Lots of false triggers and many of the birds it did capture were in deep shadow but one lovely surprise was to capture a Wren visiting. Being such a small bird it used the shallowest pool at the bottom of the waterfall. Unfortunately most of this area was not seen by the camera but here are some shots. (All small crops)

Just arrived, thinking about a quick bath:


A couple of it in the water:




Looking a bit wetter than it started:

Friday at the Flicks - Wren, Wood Pigeon, Blackbirds and Apples

Most days I spot the Wren exploring the shady parts of the garden but it rarely stays in sight long enough to get some video clips.The other day I got lucky.



Under the seed feeder I have a large tray to catch any seed which falls. After one night's rain the seed was under water but that didn't put off one Wood Pigeon from having a good breakfast.



The Blackbirds continue to enjoy a piece of apple from time to time. They seem to prefer to wait for the apple to go brown and soft before tucking in.



Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you. For those following the progress of the nestbox - the Great Tit continues to use it as a roost every night.

Friday at the Flicks - Nestbox, Bird Visitors, Tree Sparrow

A few days ago there was more interest in the nestbox with a Blue Tit examining the outside early in the morning and another internal visit later in the day from a Great Tit. Since this was filmed I have moved the outside camera a bit nearer to get a better close up.



A few of the regulars to the garden.
Dunnock, Great Tit, Coal Tit, Wren and Blue Tit


On the only visit to the garden so far  this Autumn here is the Tree Sparrow



Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you.

Dunnocks

No, not an expletive but one of my shy regular visitors. With the return of Sunshine after yet another rainy day I was watching the birds visiting the feeders. Creeping about the shadows was a Dunnock, every so often stopping to flutter its wings. I guess this was the female Dunnock equivalent of fluttering its eyelashes to attract the attention of a male. Sure enough a second appeared and seemed interested but never got close enough to get them both in one shot. Every so often the female would come out in the open and have a little flutter session.



I normally see just one Dunnock at a time so it was fascinating watching what appeared to be a bonding session. Then to my amazement a third appeared. I assume this was a second male as  there was a short altercation between it and one of the others and it beat a hasty retreat. After that the original two Dunnocks went their separate way in the garden and started gleaning any dropped seeds they could find.



Eventually they disappeared back into the dappled shade of the bushes. Just as I though that was going to be the only really interesting observation for the day I spied a Wren which spent most of its time partly or fully hidden from view but just for a few seconds it landed on the roof of my shed which gave a quick photo opportunity.



It was really lovely to see two of the shy visitors to the garden and look forward to capturing the pair of Dunnocks on video one day.

Visitors to the Pond Waterfall 2 (Heath Robinson Strikes Again)

A chance comment from Adrian about having some sort of Infra Red detector to fire a camera got me thinking. First I spent some time searching to see if such a thing was made. Probably there is but I couldn't find one so the Heath Robinson in me had another one of those rare flashes of inspiration. Would a passive IR sensor as used for burglar alarms be any use? I had an old one kicking about so set about working out how to couple it to the camera. To cut the story short I got the IR detector to work a small relay which operates a cheap wireless camera remote control, all operated from a 12V battery.

Now the camera could be one end of the pond and the detector the other end near the pond waterfall.
 

But - would the IR detector work in Sunlight? Well yes, as long as the Sun doesn't shine directly on the front of it. There are some spurious shots as it detects changes in temperature when the sunlight varies with shadows but it does seem to detect birds moving on the waterfall.

Sparrows, a Starling and a Blue Tit enjoying a bathe.



Blue Tit having a good soak.



Splash it all over



A Wren came for a drink



I'm pretty sure this is the Wren taking off as it was taken soon after the previous photo.



All in all I am quite pleased with the results. The set up was in place from about 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.. The camera was triggered about 300 times, many of which have no bird in sight but about  40 did, usually sparrows. Most of the bathing activity was between 3.30 and 5.30 p.m. so I now know when to watch out for visitors.

This is the detector, before I put the cover back on the IR unit.

Passive IR detector taking up most of the space. Below that the relay circuit board and on the left hand side the radio transmitter. The receiver can be seen on top of the 350D in the first photo.

The system is not perfect. I am sure it misses some activity as it is difficult for the detector to pick out changes in IR heat in sunlight but it does give an opportunity to see some of the activity at the pond waterfall and see which birds make use of it.