Friday at the Flicks - Greenfinch

I didn't have anything new last Wednesday for the Wings and today is no better as the weather has been awful most of the week with lighting levels less than an average mid winter. Here is a short video of a Greenfinch which visited the feeders last March - good job I have a few clips which I haven't uploaded yet.





Easy to tell yesterday was a 13th. Decided to update my iPad1 to the latest iOS5 and wished I hadn't bothered. All told it took 12 hours to get the iPad back to a reasonable, though not fully, working order. Looking round some of the blogs I see I was far from being alone in having problems. The installation of the new operating system seemed to go smoothly but when it came to restoring all the apps there were many problems, crashes, loud ungentlemanly mutterings and lots of cold cups of tea.

One 'bright light in a wicked world'  A favourite free app of mine is 'eBook Search' which is great for finding and downloading free ebooks on the iPad. This stopped downloading with iOS5 so I emailed Patrick Thompson, the founder of Inkstone Software, who maintains the app and within a few hours he had an updated version available for download. I tested that. Brilliant, it is now back to a fully working piece of software.

Macro on Monday - Guess What

I don't know about you, but to me the weeks seem to be rushing past these days. Here we are again, another Monday galloped up on me.
Anyway - five virtual to award to Adrian, John, Wilma, Matron and Glo as they all correctly identified the spider in last Monday's Guess What.

The Nursery Rhyme goes:

The itsy, bitsy spider, climbed up the water spout.
Down came the rain and washed the spider out.
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain,
So the itsy, bitsy spider went up the spout again.

but this one was a bit on the larger size.



I wonder if I will get as many correct answers for this one...

Guess What:

Don't be shy. Have a guess. No prizes, just for fun.

Friday at the Flicks - Bobby

And now, as they say, for something completely different. A few weeks ago there was a news item about some slow motion film made which showed how dogs drink. It showed how a dog curves the tongue backwards to scoop up the liquid. The speed at which this happens draws up a column of liquid and by quickly closing the mouth a quantity is trapped in the mouth.

I wondered if I could film this myself with Bobby just using the TZ7 and slowing the playback down enough to see what was going on. The result is shown below. The first part of the video runs at 1/10 speed and it does a reasonable job of showing the drinking action.



Some of the original film, shown on the Discovery channel, can be found here on YouTube.

Have a great weekend observing the wildlife, and domestic life, around you.

Wings on Wednesday

There are often light aircraft flying near or over the village, especially at weekends. A very distinctive one I have seen several times over the past few years is this Pitts S1-C amateur build biplane.



A very smart looking aeroplane designed for aerobatics. I see, from looking round the net, that at one stage it had been rebuilt as a seven year project and was on sale for £26,000

Back nearer earth sees the return of Jackdaws. They had been missing for a couple of months but are now back attacking the bread I put out for the corvids.



They don't stay for long when they notice anyone watching.

Macro on Monday - Guess What

I would reckon on two and a half last week. It was weathered stone but Adrian and Glo completed the identification of a stone cross which is one of the gravestones in the village churchyard. Glo even went and found the meaning of the carved inscription. (See her comment last Monday)

   

Back to macro this week with a few small crops from a photo.

Guess what:


All are welcome to try. Just for fun. No prizes apart from the virtual gold stars for correct identifications.

Friday at the Flicks - Hedgehogs

Yesterday I set up the Panasonic hard drive camcorder up to film any birds bathing in the garden pond waterfall. It has the advantage of being able to film unattended for long periods as there is space for over 25 hours of video on the hard drive and a decent battery will last for about 2.5 hrs. I tried three sessions totalling about 1.5 hrs - result - nothing! Not a single bird though I chose times which are normally popular with the birds. Typical.

I did manage to get a few views of the hedgehogs which visit after dark. There are at least two which visit every night.



Have a great weekend observing the wildlife wherever you are.

Wings on Wednesday

Glorious day yesterday. Set up the 350D to take some automatic photos of any birds visiting the garden pond waterfall. Lighting not so good as the Sun is lower in the sky so the depth of focus wasn't great.

Mainly House Sparrows. Not a good photo but gives an idea of how well they have been breeding this year.



Of course Starlings cannot resist a good bath either.....



... making sure everyone else gets a good shower at the same time.



Back with the Sparrows I have been pleased to see a few Tree Sparrows returning to the feeders after spending the Summer in the local hedgerows. Young House Sparrow at the top, Tree Sparrow underneath.



Another missed photo: (Bee or Moth?)

While I was seeing what to prune out of the remaining Lavender bush I spotted a new visitor. Was it a bee or a moth? It looked much like the Hummingbird Hawk Moth photos I have looked at but the descriptions say the size is 35 to 45 mm wingspan and my visitor seemed smaller than that. The body looked just like a smallish bumblebee, it had the straight snout sticking out in front and hovered like a hummingbird. Of course I dashed in for the TZ7 but it had gone by the time I got back and I haven't seen it again.