A Wet Dream (Hammock)

Just had one of those exceptional rain storms. Worst I have seen for many a year. Thunder, tropical downpour, hail ..... Water flowing down the lane like a river.

In less than an hour my weather station recorded 1.33 inches (33.8mm) of rain at a rate of over 2 inches per hour:



Of interest, to me anyway, was the change in temperature as the storm passed through:
Dropping from 21C to 15C



Lest I forget - the wet Dream Hammock:

Though the cushion is said to be waterproof I had put it away after this morning's siesta..

Clouds building up for the next deluge:

Friday at the Flicks - LTTs

Another brief visit from the Long Tailed Tits this morning. Unfortunately most of the feeders needed topping up and when they settled on the peanut feeder they were soon barged out of the way by a gang of Starlings. I did manage a few photos:



A few of the LTTs then investigated the ground feeder and gave an opportunity for my first ever short video clip of them though it is so short I slowed it down to half speed:



Soundtrack made with NodeBeat on the iPad.

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

Taking a Breather

What does the amateur garden wildlife observer do to have a rest. Well, if you are like me you expend energy to save energy in the long run. For a few years I have debated whether to buy one of those garden swing seat arrangements but these days I am not built for sitting upright for very long. Reclining, now that is another matter. I could recline for England with no problem. Whilst looking through various sites for garden seats I came across a more novel idea which appealed to me so there and then, well after finding about the cheapest place with overnight delivery, I e-handed over the readies before the idea ended up on the Round Tuit pile and sat back to wait. For what? A Dream Hammock.

Yesterday it duly arrived, in various pieces for self assembly of course. A browse of the instruction booklet gave a distinct impression it was along the reputed Ikea school of instructions. This was not a job to be undertaken lightly as the completed thing weighs in at around 40Kg. In spite of the instructions, the provided spanners not fitting the nuts and one small bit being missing I had the skeleton erected in about an hour. having found a suitable replacement for the missing part:



Soon followed by the 'seat'. (There is a cushion to go over that)



No time to test it out though as very soon after reaching this stage the heavens opened - nothing new there then.

Once this morning had warmed up a bit I fitted the cushion ready for the test drive to see whether it would live up to its dreamy name. Of course the on site supervisor kept a watchful eye on proceedings:



Not as cantankerous as a true hammock it still takes a little practice to find the best way of getting on and off as the seat section hangs on a single support and can rotate and rock to some extent.;


(Soundtrack created using Loop Twister on the iPad)

Is it dreamy? 100% so. (or if you are a numerically challenged Chancellor of the Exchequer, 110%)  Once in place on the hammock the shape makes for very comfortable reclining and the way it gently rocks and rotates a little in the wind is very soothing. As you can see I still use my old sunshade as the fiddly one on the hammock is of only partial use, depending on the Sun's position in the sky. Bet the weather takes a nose dive now!

Guess What - Revisited

A bit if a clue to go with last Friday's Guess What as no one came near the correct answer. The guesses were good as far as interpreting what could be seen and I would probably have given a similar answer but you need to think vegetable and not animal.

A bit wider view to help you:

Guess What

There seem to have been no opportunities for taking any new video this week so I thought I would have a Guess What for a change. It is quite a while since I used the mini microscope on the iPhone so here is one I took yesterday: Magnification will be about 80-100x.



No clues, not for the moment anyway..... It will be interesting to see what you think this is.

Swallows on the Move

It is not one swalowe that bryngeth in somer. (From the proverbs of Erasmus) but by the looks of things yesterday afternoon the arrival of about twenty or more Swallows hurtling around the sky above my garden it seems as though they are making their way back to the coast. They will soon be leaving for warmer climates. That must mean we are getting near the end of Summer. What Summer I hear you ask. Well we are well past the longest day so there must have been one some time as we are now heading to Autumn. Daylight hours are noticeably shorter.

It was pure chance that I spotted the Swallows as I was washing up after we had enjoyed a basic but tasty stew. Quite a few took a short rest on the telephone wires just past the end of my garden and spent some time preening their flight feathers. Those birds had shorter tail feathers so I assume they were from this years broods.







This is the first time I have seen so many together. Normally I only see the odd three or four so it was really pleasant standing in the Sunlight watching the speed and agility of these birds as they hunt the insects flying above the trees. They made the rest of the garden birds look like they were flying in slow motion.

 I don't know what is wrong with my computer but uploading anything has been a real pain recently. I have been lucky if one photo would upload to Flickr using either the web based or the stand alone uploaders. Things would hang with lots of router activity but no progress or they would time out. Today I found a Firefox add on which uploads to many different services and that seemed to work just fine. Let's hope it keeps working!

Venus is Working Hard

Nah! Not the goddess of love, beauty, fertility and prosperity. Think of the plant variety, the Venus Fly Trap. Earlier in the year it surprised me by producing flowers which, incidentally appear to be producing seeds. This plant, unlike others of the same variety I have had in the past, has been doing a grand job reducing the number of flies which insist on exploring my property:

     





This has been a bumper year for flies. I have a traditional fly paper hanging in the kitchen window, not pretty to look at but very effective. The past couple of years it had caught something like fifteen flies over each Summer. This year there are over forty already and room for more.