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.

Friday at the Flicks (Ladybird, Noisy Magpie, Magpie V Collared Dove)

I couldn't resist taking a short piece of video as this 7 spot ladybird scurried about looking for food.



A few days ago a juvenile Magpie was making its mind up whether to visit the suet ball feeder. As usual it was either calling or just chattering away to itself.



Not very sharp as a spider keeps building a web in front of this video camera but it was interesting to watch the actions of a juvenile Magpie and a Collared Dove as they sorted out who was master of the ground feeder.Love to watch the dove puff itself up to look larger. The doves and pigeons are not very good at sharing unlike many other bird species which visit the garden.



Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you.

Juvenile Magpie

A juvenile Magpie is still a regular visitor on and off during each day. I don't have to see it to know it is there. The harsh cackle it makes most of the time lets me know it is about. A few times I have seen it feeding on the suet ball feeder and this morning was the first time I managed to get a few shots of it before it noticed me.





A couple of mornings I have spotted an adult with three juveniles.  Possibly they take it in turns to visit or it may be that one has decided this is its favourite feeding spot.

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.