Seed Rage

There is often an item in the news about an incident of road rage but come here to the Birdy Bistro and you will see many examples of seed rage. You would think it was mid winter with the number of birds now visiting the garden for their share of free seed. Do they peacefully wait their turn? Well, a few do like the Blue and Coal Tits which will watch for a gap and dash in to grab a bite to eat. Not so with the Starlings, Sparrows, Goldfinches and now the Greenfinches. I have noticed more birds singing during the day so I guess it is time to start marking out territory again.

The Greenfinches have taken to visiting the ground feeder which is actually stood on a small metal table. One yesterday was determined to keep all the food for itself. First it faced off another Greenfinch.



Then it had a go at a House Sparrow which dared to land.



 The One That Got Away

As I was watching through the kitchen window first thing I saw a Sparrowhawk chasing a small bird across the sky. I have not seen them trying to catch their prey in level flight before today. The small bird was weaving all over the place and could change direction faster than the Sparrowhawk. Though the hunter got close it could not get close enough and gave up in the end. It was obviously built for high speed dive bombing its target and not built for stamina in level flight. One very lucky small bird. They were too far away and too quick to photograph.

Goldies Galore

For the past few days there have been at least ten Goldfinches visiting the garden each day. When they are not at the feeders I can hear them twittering to each other in the nearby bushes and trees.



Yesterday was the first time I have actually seen any hot tempers between the goldies. Normally they sit peacefully eating the Nyjer seeds. This time it is Bobby scaring the birds away as he says hello to one of his girlfriends.



There seem to be a good proportion of juveniles in the group. Here there are three with two adults.



The three juvenile Magpies are still constant visitors though rarely all at the same time.



Today seems so calm after the blustery weather of the day before. Plenty of rain overnight with the rain gauge showing 0.8 of an inch. Last night we had another of what seem to be getting more frequent power cuts. This time the village was without power for two hours.  Thank goodness I hung on to my old metal kettle and have a gas cooker. At least I could make a cup of tea.

A bit of Summer and a bit of Spring

This is the first Sunflower to open in the garden. Yes it is late as it grew from seed dropped by the birds.



The  corkscrew hazel has grown into a lovely bush. Yesterday I spotted the start of next Spring's catkins already showing. They will remain tightly closed through all the cold and damp of the Winter.



No Swallows lining up on the telephone wires here but a line of Starlings warming them selves in the early morning Sunshine.

The Camera Never Lies

That's what they used to say but in this digital world of HDR and airbrushing my reply to that would be humph!

I set the Lumix TZ7 to take three shots of the same scene at -1  0  +1 EV



Then I combined them as an HDR tonemapped image using  Photomatrix so as to make the sky a bit more dramatic at the same time trying not to make the green areas too unrealistic.



Then, being the inveterate twiddler I am, I thought I would further process the HDR image in Paintshop Pro using the ReDynaMix plugin. I also cropped the result.



Which of these looks like the scene as I saw it? None of them. The digital camera doesn't see the full spectrum range our eyes see or at least cannot process it in the same way our brain does. Which image is most interesting, well that is always subjective.

Finally I decided to convert the last image to greyscale.



There is something about b/w images. Colours don't get in the way of seeing the shapes and textures.

Friday at the Flicks (Sparrows, Greenfinch, Goldfinch)

Yesterday morning I was wondering whether there would be a Friday at the Flicks this morning. About 10a.m. my internet connection failed. Phoned Zen and after nearly an hour trying various tests and configurations still no connection though the phone link appeared to be live. The problem was passed on to BT and fortunately by late afternoon things began to work again.

Nothing spectacular today. My usual crowd of House Sparrows which often arrive like a cloud rather than a flock.




It has been great to see the occasional young Greenfinch




The juvenile Goldfinches and their parents are very regular visitors at the moment.



This morning was the first of the 'Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness'  but the Sun soon burned off the thick mist which had enveloped the village first thing.

Have a great weekend observing the antics of the wildlife around you.

Beetles and Bathers

A couple of days ago I turned over a piece of wood and found this tiny shiny beetle. The camera couldn't catch just how metallic it looked seeming to change from blue to green depending how the light caught it. Body length about 5mm. I am pretty sure it is a Chrysolina, maybe Chrysolina herbacia.



The same day this beetle had fallen in the water in Bobby's bowl. This one was about 11mm long and appears to belong to the group Xantholinus. What caught my attention was its long thin body and the tiny wings.



Yesterday I set up the 350D and home brew IR detector to monitor the pond waterfall. This time it worked very well, triggering hundreds of times during the day with only a tiny number of shots without a bird in sight. In fact it took a long while to sort through all the shots and decide which to keep.

Amongst the visitors were:

Greenfinch


Goldfinch


Wood Pigeon


Starlings


Clumsy young House Sparrows


Whole collections of House Sparrows


There were many times when the waterfall was so full of birds they had to queue to get in


Not shown today Chaffinch and Coal Tits were also photographed. One thing is certain - a supply of drinking and bathing water is just as important (if not more so) as seed feeders, especially with all the dry days we have been having this year.

At the Seed Feeder

Yesterday I tried the IR detector about five feet away from a seed feeder. One thing I learned - as the feeder warms up in the sunshine and starts to swing in the breeze it triggers the sensor. Once the feeder was in shadow or the wind clamed down then it worked OK.

Chaffinch coming in to land:



Most of the photos were of birds, mainly sparrows, peacefully feeding but the arrival of Starlings usually livens things up a bit.

Are you my Dad?


Keep moving pal.


Go find your own perch.


Where is Air Traffic Control when you need them?


 I wonder how long a camera battery lasts when it needs recharging every day.