DoggyCam - First Trials

I mentioned some time ago that I was waiting for a camera which is made to clip on an animal's collar and hang under the chin. It arrived a while ago and has been near the top of the 'Round Tuit' pile for some time. Today I decided it was time to give it a proper test as so far I had only tried it hand held to make sure it was working OK.



I gave it a short trial in the garden with it attached to Penny's usual house collar. It would not hang on an even keel. As as she tends to mooch around with her head down I got plenty of chin shots! This is a few extracts from that first test: (Probably best to turn the sound right down!)




For the mid-day walk I used a different collar. At first the camera fell off as we got out the front gate but refixing it made it stay in place for the rest of the walk. Also that proved the camera is rugged enough to stand a few knocks.

This is composed from some short sections from the walk. Nothing inspiring as we didn't meet anyone and too much will probably induce motion sickness in the viewer. I am pleased with the colour quality and the picture is reasonable for a standard 640x480 pixel AVI video. This short walk used just over half a gig of the 4gig built in memory. The battery is rated to last for 2.5hrs before it needs recharging and at this rate of memory usage I can see it holding  about 1.5 hrs of video which it records in 30min chunks. Just as well it is in chunks as the transfer rate to the pC is dreadfully slow.

If you don't blink at the beginning you will get a rare glimpse of the author - too much might scare the horses!




The result is fine when Penny is reasonably still but when walking there is too much motion to be comfortable watching. Should be more interesting when we meet some other dogs. What's the betting that we only meet anyone when I don't put the camera on?

Friday at the Flicks - Thief - Woodpecker - Clouds

When I checked the overnight recordings a few days ago I saw that the black, bird killer cat was helping itself to the dried mealworms I scatter around for the visiting hedgehogs:



Yesterday the same cat was hunting a grey wagtail which was wandering too close. Penny and I about turned and wandered back. First the bird flew off and then as we got closer the cat beat a hasty retreat.



A couple of days ago the Great Spotted Woodpecker paid another visit to the peanut feeder at the bottom of the garden. This time I managed to take a few bits of video:





My replacement router arrived and to start with uploads to YouTube seemed to work OK but last night I was having real difficulties but even changing to an old router, which usually works well, there were still very long pauses. In the end I gave up and opened an account with Vimeo. My first test upload went smoothly - another cloud timelapse job:



That one was an experiment to find out how many photos the 4GB card would hold. I reduced the quality on the 360D to medium and set it up to take a shot every 5 seconds. After about one and a half hours I changed the battery in the camera as it was running low. Fortunately the tripod I use allows me to get at the battery compartment without disturbing the camera. The set up kept going for 3hr 41min and took 2652 shots. By that time the space left counter on the camera was down to single figures. The video was produced at 15 frames per second which made for a smoother animation.


Have a great weekend observing nature and wildlife around you.

Wings for Wednesday

It was a pleasure to see an adult Greenfinch at the seed feeder:



Not only that but here are two of the four juveniles which had tagged along:



I do tend to get a bit apprehensive when Greenfinches visit these days as the past three Summers they have brought finch disease to my garden. Let's hope we stay clear this year.

Another juvenile was spotted this week and I hope that this time it really was a juvenile Robin:





Finally - a bit blurry - a return visit by the Great Spotted Woodpecker:

A Strawberry and a Half

I hasten to say I did not grow this. My crop has been a miserable failure this year. This came in a tub of strawberries delivered by Asda this morning. The pot contained a mixture of what I would call traditional sizes and large sizes. This being the largest of the 'monsters'. About 50mm across at its widest.



I assumed it was a mixture of two different varieties though the pot was only  labelled with one variety name - Portola. I haven't seen such large ones from a British producer before.  They were from Vicarage Nurseries, Worcestershire. All those I have eaten were tasty and well textured, unlike some foreign imports I had earlier in the year which were tasteless and hard enough to hammer in nails.

A Sun Fly

Dull start to the day but it soon turned out to be sunny with a mix of blue sky and white clouds. For only the fourth time this year I sat out in the garden with my trusty Sony Walkman blasting through headphones to drown out what a friend always calls 'Black and Decker Day'. A time when everyone seems to be mowing lawns and trimming hedges with a variety of mechanical aids.

From time to time I would have a wander across to the pond to see what was about. Quite a few hoverflies and one bobby dazzler in particular:



Can't say I had noticed this type before so had a quick Google ('they can't touch you for it' as Ken Dodd would say) and quickly found its likeness on the microscopy-uk site HERE which has many very clear photos making identification easy. It turned out what had visited the pond was a Sun Fly (Heliophilus pendulas)



The golden yellow is very bright and really stood out in the sunlight.

No Video Today

For ages now I have had real problems uploading to YouTube and Flickr.. After lots of experimentation I have come to the conclusion my new router may be faulty. My internet provider, Zen, has today said they will send a replacement so hopefully all will be back to normal in the near future. It's no fun when it can take up to four hours to upload a 50MB video. if it uploads at all. I can get a reasonable upload speed with my old router but that lacks some facilities I rely on and any way the new one should work just as well if not better. Technology is supposed to improve as time goes on, not deteriorate!

Some Surprises Are Nice .........

Yesterday it was a very pleasant surprise to see for the first time in the garden not one but two juvenile Robins? which seemed quite at home investigating all the places where seeds could be found.

Keith suggested these are juvenile Dunnocks so I had another look round the internet. I only found one site which had photos of a juvenile Dunnock and a juvenile Robin where the differences were clear. Looking at the shape of the beak (the Dunnock's is finer) and the colour of the legs (the Robin's are darker)  it would appear that Keith is correct. A lot of photos on the net seem to be wrongly identified which made things very confusing for me. Also it appears that a lot of people have trouble telling which is which, me among them.







Some Surprises I Could Do Without ......

The day before delivered a surprise which was more of a shock than anything. I was busy on the computer and the back door was open to let Penny come and go as she pleased. I noticed her come in the room but couldn't see what she was doing. She kept whining and coming across to me but I took little notice until I had finished with the 'pooter. Looking to see what Penny was up to I saw she had brought in a dead, part eaten Wood Pigeon. I was not best pleased and told her so very firmly. I disposed of it at the back of one of my compost bins which has a narrowish opening at the top of the front. I though no more about it until I saw madam coming across the lawn with the same object in her mouth. She must have leapt up to get in the bin. On my second attempt I disposed of it in a fully enclosed container. It still sends shivers down my spine when I recall the event.

I know Penny chases after the Wood Pigeons but they fly away before she gets near them. I am sure this one was dropped by a passing raptor . It looked well plucked and search as I could I found no feathers around the garden.