Waiting for Breakfast

A Sparrowhawk sitting on an old outdoor chair, less than 6 feet (2 metres) away from the bird feeders, trying to blend in with the fence and patiently waiting for any small bird to visit.







This time the ruse was unsuccessful.

Little Lost Dragon

One minute I am complaining that there haven't been many Dragonflies around the garden this year then one decides to come to visit me. This Common Hawker flew in to the conservatory on Sunday and attached itself to the greenhouse shading I use to cut down the amount of direct sunlight through the roof. As it was hanging upside down I got a view I don't see very often.

A Common Hawker

Macro on Monday - Guess What

Close up of an object taken using the mini microscope on the iPhone4
Can you guess what the object is?



No prizes, just for fun.

Clue: I wouldn't want my ice cream in this one.

Clouds and Sun Dogs

While out for our after tea walk I noticed a Sun Dog - where a group of clouds show the colours of the rainbow. It had disappeared by the time we got back home but I kept an eye in that direction in case it should appear again. Patience was rewarded as two appeared, one each side  of the Sun and at about the same elevation. They were not as well defined as the ones I saw last year so I took lots of shots in the hope that I could capture the event.

South side Sun Dog                                                   North side Sun Dog
  

The red part of the spectrum is on the side nearest the Sun.
You can read about how Sun Dogs are formed HERE.

There was quite a variety of cloud formations and, inspired by Adrian of Adrian's Images, I tried a few panoramic compositions taking three shots with the TZ7 on its widest angle setting. The first was taken while the Sun was above the horizon but behind the trees. It was processed using Serif Panorama Plus 2, which is a free program.

 

The resulting panorama was then tweaked with the ReDynaMix plug-in in Photoshop Elements 10:



For some reason the set of three shots taken as the Sun started to set were rejected by Serif's program so were stitched in Elements and tweaked as before:



On days like yesterday where the cloud shapes and movement show how winds at various levels move in different directions it is easy to see why weather prediction can still be very hit and miss, especially on a local level.

Hedgehogs Aren't Small and Furry

Captured last night was this short video clip of a mouse investigating the Hedgehog House:




The Great Tit continues to make a daily inspection of the camera nest box.

Friday at the Flicks - Dragonfly - Juvenile Goldfinch

A bit of video of the female Common Darter. A bit wobbly as I was balancing one leg of the tripod on the window ledge:



These past few days the level in the nyger feeders has been going down at an alarming rate. All of a sudden I get about a dozen Goldfinches visiting every day. Even when they are not all on the feeders I can hear them twittering to each other in nearby bushes. This video is of one the the juveniles having a good wash in the bird bath:




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

Where There's a Will There's a Way

A little thing like the size of wire mesh being too small for a Jackdaw to get on the bird table doesn't put off a resourceful corvid: