Peanut Cake Visitors

The Robin Peanut Cake blocks I ordered from C J Wildlife are proving to be very popular with my garden visitors, especially as many birds are feeding nestlings at the moment. A short video showing Blue Tit, Robin and House Sparrow:



The 'cake' consists of peanut flour, tallow, Sunflower hearts, kibbled peanuts, dried mealworms and other seeds and fruit.

The camera nest box hasn't been taken by any birds but does seem to have a resident wasp. I am sure there is a Song Thrush nest in the Ivy at the bottom of the garden, or very nearby. A couple of days ago I saw two Song Thrushes together on the lawn and one keeps visiting to collect worms and always flies back to the same spot in the Ivy. So far I haven't managed to video it as the Song Thrush is very wary and timid.

How Time Flies

After a bit of judicious trimming of vegetation and re-positioning the IR detector I set things up again to see what wildlife was visiting for a drink or a quick bath.

Here is the IR detector in place:

 

I was thinking I had built this a couple of years ago and was astounded when I found out I had originally written about building it ten years ago here (Heath Robinson Strikes Again). While the weather is fine I have left the detector in place so the birds get used to it being there.

A few regulars from Tuesday:

House Sparrows


Female Blackbird


Robin

(must remember to set the camera to manual focus)

Wood Pigeons


At least there were fewer false triggers and empty photos to delete.

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.

Painted Lady and Feeding Time

A Painted Lady spent ages feeding on my Lavender bushes.
It never stopped moving so I only managed a few record shots.





The first I have seen since the last big influx in 2009

I have many House Sparrow families around the building.
Here a fledgling was being fed.





As I lifted the lid of my green waste wheelie bin I spotted



a small black beetle which I managed to photograph before it ran away.
Size about 8mm and much shinier than the photo shows.
So far I have failed to identify it.

Friday at the Flicks - Waterfall Bathers

I managed to sneak the camera and tripod just outside the back door, about fifty feet away from the waterfall. The birds hardly noticed me behind the tripod. Mainly House Sparrows with Starlings soaking everything in sight and a fleeting visit from a juvenile Collared Dove:



It was unfortunate I had to change the soundtrack. For some reason the natural sound recorded at the time has a lot of background noise.

Soundtrack:  Eternity by Positively Dark
A free download from:  http://www.entropymusic.com/

Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you.

Playing With Serif Affinity Photo

I wanted to be able to abstract a subject from a cluttered background.

Started with:



and after an hour or more experimenting ended with:



I need to practice working with selections and layers as I seemed to spend ages going round in ever decreasing circles and back tracking through most of the things I had done.

Friday at the Flicks - House Sparrows & Stretch Spiders

One particularly hot day many of the local House Sparrows spent a lazy time Sunbathing on my shed roof. Who says their numbers are in decline? Here they have been breeding well this year:




I have tried several time to video the Stretch Spiders which build their webs between the plants in my garden pond. They seem to re-build them every day, if not more than once a day. This is the best I have managed so far. The webs are large and they work so quickly it isn't easy to try getting in really close:



Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you.

House Sparrow Community

RSPB reports suggest that House Sparrow populations have fallen by 71% since 1977. Our local ones are doing their best to make a recovery. They spend a lot of time together. Chattering in the hedges. Taking dust baths. Visiting the garden pond waterfall:

Six at once:


No, make that Seven:


Correction, Eight:


Might be hard to see - there is one almost hidden behind the Sparrow on the left.

What I have noticed has been the lack of Tree Sparrows visiting the garden. For the previous few Winters there have been several joining the House Sparrows at the feeders but last Winter I didn't see one.

Sparrow Family Feeding

This is by way of an experiment.
The photos have been made into a swf file which will take a short while to load.
Once loaded the photos should cycle through. If not then hover the mouse over the bottom centre of the box. This should show the controls and the PLAY arrow. Click this to start the slide show. Use the same button to stop the show. Once stopped, clicking on photos will bring them to the front:



Hope it works for you. Tested with the latest Firefox and Safari web browsers on Mac. Not sure how it will behave on mobile hardware. The show is interactive but is a bit buggy with this embedded flash player. Once started it should be possible to click on the photos to bring different ones to the front. I tried this on my iPad2. Didn't work in the Safari browser but worked fine using the Puffin browser.

In case it doesn't work for you, here is the moment two impatient youngsters landed on Papa's back and made him fall off the feeder.:

(As Simon pointed out in fact it was Mama who was used as a landing platform)

 

Why do people like Blogger keep changing things? There used to be the word Upload to click on to upload photos. This morning I was staring at the screen trying to see it. Nope, gone. Replaced by a cloudy triangle icon which says Upload when you hover over it. I prefer the old maxim: If it aint broke, don't fix it.

The slide show was created using the Mac app 3DGallery which is a free download at the time of writing. I have used the iOS version in the past and uploaded the swf files to Photobucket but now they don't accept them. It took a bit of searching to find another way. It can be done by storing the file on Dropbox and embedding the player with a link to the file.

Friday at the Flicks - Feeding Fledgling Sparrow

 

 For a while the fledgling House Sparrow sat on some trellis while papa fetched food. I don't think the youngster was long out of the nest as I could still see the yellow marking along its beak.



Have a great weekend observing nature around you.

House Sparrow Feeds Youngster.

Plenty of broods visiting the garden this year but it has been noticeable that many only have one or two fledglings. This time it was the turn of a male House Sparrow. At one time the baby had settled on a garden cane. In their own way they are just as agile as Blue Tits.







Papa was gathering bits from a nearby feeder which contains a mixture of peanuts and large suet sticks. Some video tomorrow.

Sparrow Family Mealtime

There have been several broods of House Sparrows here. This seems to be the latest with just one youngster.

Junior sat on top of the the Green Man's head. Maybe the spiky hair reminded it of the nest. Mum spent some time hunting around for any insects. House Sparrows are very agile. They can hover for short periods and easily cling to rough vertical surfaces:





Most of the time mum watched while dad fetched bits from a nearby peanut feeder:

Sheltering From the Rain

A few House Sparrows using the shed overhang to shelter from the rain:

Room for one in the basement.

Has the rain stopped yet?

Taken with the 70D with ISO set at 12800 as it was so dull.

Once again processed using the Pix Shape app on the iPad2.

Friday at the Flicks - Feed Me + Intelligent Rook

It has been great watching many different sets of fledglings arrive in the garden over the past few weeks - especially when they are being fed by the parents. Here is a fledgling House Sparrow and Mama on the bird table:




Yesterday, out of the blue, came a mail request from the BTO to ask if they could use one of my videos for a garden rook behaviour survey they will be running in July. It was taken some years ago when my video equipment wasn't as good as the present gear and the copy on Flickr was poor. I have re-worked it in wide screen and uploaded a new copy to YouTube:



At that time several people locally were finding their seed feeders on the floor every day and I was fortunate to catch one of the culprits in the act. Corvids are an an amazingly intelligent set of birds.

Friday at the Flicks - Bird Table, Hungry Sparrows

Some of the regular visitors to the bird table:



It may have been wet and breezy but the youngsters still needed feeding:



Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you.

House Sparrow Fledglings

Not just the Brat Pack visiting with hungry youngsters. There are also the local families of House Sparrows arriving at the Birdy Bistro.

Dad with two hungry offspring:

Pic Shape - iPad app

Another photography app which went free for one day is Pic Shape which allows various frame / mask type additions to photographs. The foreground and background can have a few modifications to alter colour cast, b/w or pencil drawing. Text can be added with a choice of style, rotation, colour and shadow.  The photo can be resized, moved and rotated if needed which makes it easy to position the main subject in the frame. The app works at a good real time speed. Saving can be done in two qualities. Also, not used here, sections of other photos can be cut and added to the main photo.

A couple of quick trial photos:





I use the app SimpleTransfer to copy photos between the iPad and PC by WiFi

Of Sparrows and Coconuts

Well, only one coconut and then only the shell. This one started life as a suet filled feeder but once it was empty the position of the cut-out made it ideal as a seed feeder. It is very popular with many of the smaller birds. Yesterday it was the turn of the House Sparrows to make full use of it:

What's on the menu today?


I'll have a sunflower heart please:


and I'll have the suet treat:


Room for two:


Video, slowed down to half speed:

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 - House Sparrows

Once again this year the House Sparrows have had a good breeding season. Plenty make regular visits to the Birdy Bistro and many large gatherings can be heard as they chatter away in some of the hedges around the village.



Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you, even the common everyday ones.