Wings on Wednesday

My one and only nature photograph this week was so grotty I ended up having a play with a set of freeware plug-in filters to see what I could come up with that might be worth looking at. Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and very subjective.

First the original was cropped:



A couple of examples made using the freeware 'Harry's Filters' which can be found for downloading HERE on The Plugin Site. Borders were added using the free 'Border Mania' plug-in which can be downloaded from HERE.





I wonder if you see the same optical illusion I noticed. To me the bird in the first arty farty picture appears to be flying towards me but away in the second.

Macro on Monday - Guess What + Robin Nest Box

A better response for last week's Guess What with Adrian, John and Glo gaining a     for identifying the pond snail along with Wilma who identified it as some sort of snail.

    

On to a new puzzle picture.
A couple of microscope shots and the rest small crops from the TZ7.
Guess What:

I'm not expecting a specific identification, just a general name will do.

No prizes. Just for fun.

Robin Nest Box
While doing some pruning and general tidying up at the bottom of the garden I had a look in the Robin nest box. I was pleased to see that it contained a nest so something had made use of it for the first time in the three years it has been available.

  

I think some leaves have been blown in recently but the nesting moss can be seen under them. The box was empty last time I checked which was after the Great Tits had fledged their box in June.

Friday at the Flicks - Birdy Bistro Regulars

This week I concentrated on filming  the regulars at the feeders. A few would not stay in one place long enough to be included like the Robin and Wren.



Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you wherever you are.

Pheasant for Breakfast

Maybe the title should have read Pheasant at Breakfast as that was just what happened at the Birdy Bistro this morning. Simply awful conditions for photography so here are a couple of snapshots which had to taken at ISO 3000. At 1200 the shutter speed was about 1/5 second with the lens wide open!






Not my morning for good photography. I also managed to record some video as it passed near the 'Hedgehog' camera but the recorder was playing up and showing a lot of coloured blocks. I did take a lot out by dropping out those frames in Corel Video Studio Pro X4 (yes I did manage to get a cheap copy in the Amazon Black Friday Event last week).




While on the subject of Hedgehogs it looks as though my regular visitor has decided to hibernate at last. Four days running the dried mealworms have still been there the following morning, much to the delight of the invading Starlings which polish them off in about 10 seconds.

Macro on Monday - Guess What + Internet Radio

Well, well. Yet again I get to keep all the virtual gold stars to myself. Last week's Guess What was a close view of some sheep's wool I found blowing down the lane some time ago.

    

Maybe this week things will be a bit easier.
Guess What:


No prizes, just for fun.

Internet Radio
It is only fairly recently that I have found the pleasure of listening to radio through the internet. Being a founder member of the Grumpy Old Man community I find a lot of modern so called comedy far from funny and do not see the need for foul language to make a joke funny, just the opposite. It was a real pleasure when I tried a couple of apps on the iPad to access internet radio sites. My first search was for comedy channels, UK comedy as a lot of modern US humour goes straight over my head.

I was overjoyed to find Abacus.fm which has a large variety of stations for all tastes. My favourites being 'The Goon Show' and 'British Comedy' channels. Also found was PumpkinFM, for their 'British Comedy' channel. On a different theme another favourite of mine is The UK 1940s Radio Station which broadcasts swing / big band music from that era. On the music side I like a wide variety of styles from classical through to some of the 'head banging' modern styles and there are stations to cater for all of this.

I soon got dissatisfied with the sound from the small speaker in the iPad and bought a Roberts internet radio. It refused to connect to my wireless internet connection, even after more than an hour of help from the Roberts help line. Fortunately it works well through a firewire connection to the router but I would have liked it portable rather than tethered.

Sunset in Black and White and Colour

Lovely Sunset this evening so took a few snaps with the Lumix. What I wanted to end up with was a photo with the sky in colour and the foreground in greyscale. I did manage it after fiddling around in Elements for about an hour and a half. Although I have just finished it I doubt I could remember what I did to repeat the effect.



I'm not sure the end result was worth the trials and tribulations but was a way of trying to come to terms with Elements 10. It's a powerful program, a tad more powerful than me I fear.

Friday at the Flicks - Female Blackcap

It was a good job I managed to take some photos and a few bits of video of the female Blackcap when she visited as she only stayed a couple of days. You can see how small she is (a little smaller than a House Sparrow) when a Great Tit lands next to her. Notice also that birds, with their eyes set at the side of their heads, have to tilt their heads to one side to find the next seed they are going to eat.



Sound Track: "Your Smile" from the iPhone / iPad app "[SPA] Spirits Massage - The Sound of Moving " available as a free download on the iTunes App Store,