Small Tortoiseshell Butterfly

This one was spotted last Saturday morning warming itself in the early morning sunshine.


 Aglais urticae

Bit of an allsorts day yesterday, weather-wise. At one stage it was pouring with rain but the front garden was bathed in brilliant sunshine while a few miles to the south I could hear a thunderstorm. Here we had about 3/4 inch of rain but looking at the met office maps during the day we were lucky as much heavier rainfall was shown in most of the surrounding areas.

On the Hedgehog front I am puzzled as to what has happened to the locals. Not one has been seen in the feeding area for the past 7 nights. The activity had started to pick up after a short lull and then suddenly stopped.

On a Lily Pad

There were quite a few of the pond skaters resting on the lily pads in the pond. Here one is resting near a female damselfly both making the most of the sunshine after the previous nights tropical downpour.



Although the damselfly occasionally flew to different leaves at one stage it stayed still and allowed me to get the TZ7 within three inches of it for a close up shot.



I wondered how the damselflies had managed to find enough shelter as, at one stage, the rain was hitting the roof of the shed and greenhouse so hard it was bouncing up about eighteen inches and looked like steam rising. We both had our waterproofs on for early morning walkies but at the moment it is not too bad

Visitors to the Bird Table

As it kept raining yesterday I set up the 350D on a tripod in the kitchen and trained it on my bird table. Then I connected the intervalometer and left it to take a photo about once every 16 seconds. The bird table has wire mesh on all sides to keep out the larger birds but the front can be lowered to allow cleaning and topping up the seed. So the camera could get a clear view I left the front section down. For the first hour or more there was nothing caught on camera but towards late afternoon several species paid a visit.

One of the most frequent visitors was the Coal Tit racing in to grab black sunflower seeds and flying off with them to build up its winter stash.



Another frequent visitor was a Great Tit which would collect a sunflower heart to take to a nearby branch to eat.



Of course a list of regulars here wouldn't be complete without a Starling



or a visit from some House Sparrows.



Recently there has been at least one juvenile Magpie hanging about making an awful din. This one had to visit the table several times before it found the way in.



Finally managing to get some seed after several attempts to find the entrance.



I don't think I would have ever got the Magpie photos if I had been in the kitchen as they are very easily scared away.  Another day I can leave the camera to concentrate on one of the seed feeders or the peanut feeder. The borders on the photos were once again added using the plugin Border Mania.

Visitors to the Pond Waterfall

On Thursday I had one of those all too few flashes of inspiration. Why not use the intervalometer that I use for time lapse photography to monitor the pond waterfall. To that end I set up a 350D on a sturdy tripod at the opposite end of the pond and set the electronics to take a photo about once every twenty seconds. Over three hours it took nearly a thousand photos a few of which did manage to capture a few of our feathered friends.

Nothing out of the ordinary as yet. The first was a House Sparrow peeping to see if it was being watched.


They are very communal birds so there are normally several together.
I wonder how many you can spot here:



Easier to count this time.



And finally a male Blackbird with a Wood Pigeon.



As I said, nothing out of the ordinary but I have learned a few things. The idea works, just have to be patient. My chosen spot, where I needed to have a telephoto lens with fixed focus, meant a shallow depth of field. The weeds in the way are too far in the pond to reach for pruning. I have sussed a better spot nearer the waterfall where I can get closer and probably use a 50mm lens. Of course it rained most of yesterday and is raining again this morning so I will have to wait for finer weather to have a second go.

The basic set up for time lapse photography can be seen here. In case you are wondering it doesn't take very long to check a thousand photos. I copy them to the hard drive (that takes the longest) and use IrfanView to view them. I just keep hitting the 'next' key and with the view being the same in each photo any changes show immediately. Those with activity I move to a folder and then delete the rest.

I use an old second hand camera as this technique is hard on the shutter / mirror mechanism and can give a years wear in a day. To make the camera battery last the session I turn off the LCD display as that uses a lot of energy in displaying each shot.

Friday at the Flicks (Wings over the Garden Pond)

First the Blue-tailed Damselflies. One thing I learned here - don't have the Sun behind you when filming as they reflect so much light back. First a male with its lunch then several views of a female egg laying.



 Next the Common Darter Dragonfly which seems to visit for a short while each day. Here it is resting on a planter. Twice it seems to be about to take off and changes its mind. Fascinating the way its body is pulsating all the time. As always it is constantly on the lookout for danger and food.



Finally the Empid Fly hoovering the lily pad. It seems to use its front legs to feel for and sweep anything edible under that flexible proboscis.



 Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around your patch.

Wings Over the Garden Pond

I don't know why but I am surprised every time I see a bee visit the flowers on the water lilies. So far I haven't managed a good photo of one but there are also plenty of hover flies visiting:



A daily visitor at the moment is a Common Darter Dragonfly, at least I assume it is the same one which comes looking for a meal.



Yesterday I thought I was going to manage a photo and possibly some video of the Blue-tailed Damselflies mating. There were a couple which spent a good quarter of an hour gradually getting closer to each other, finally ending up on the same perch. (not the best of photos, sorry)



When they got round to arching their bodies and looked as though the event was about to happen up turns a second female which tried to join in on the act. Unfortunately that was the end of that - for a while anyway.



All three flew off in different directions and as I had visitors arrive I didn't see the damselflies again.

Carling Star Keeps Growing

Yesterday was the first opportunity to take a photo of Angel and Carling Star for a while. Carling Star (Fred) is growing into a handsome young stallion but still stays very close to mum.



I still haven't managed to make a time lapse video of a sunset. Last night there was a possibility but the colourful sky lasted less than a quarter of an hour before the clouds went back to a more normal grey.