I only check the night video captures every now and then. A couple of nights ago was the first time for quite a while that the camera captured two Hedgehogs visiting at the same time.
Soundtrack is Dawn by Positively Dark. They have two CDs of electronic and ambient music which is free to download as individual tracks for personal use including use on YouTube videos. The only provision is a mention of their website which I am only happy to do. The music can be found HERE. It looks to be a good way for them to get some free publicity. There are several tracks which seem suitable for my use anyway.
Sunday, 14 October 2012
Saturday, 13 October 2012
Woe, Woe and Thrice Woe
So said the soothsayer in "Up Pompeii". Most of this week has been spent battling with my Arduino rainfall gauge project. First I had decided I needed a four line LCD display. Once that arrived it took a while to get it addressed properly so that filled a morning before it was fully working
To be able to store past records so as to display daily, weekly and monthly rainfall meant installing a real time clock in the circuit. I had a couple of part built kits bought over a year ago. I chose one and soldered in the resistors and connector, wired it up and spent ages finding and downloading different test sketches. Why do Arduino programmers call their programs sketches?
None of them worked. The display always showed the same gibberish. That had taken up a whole day with just an hour break while I installed a new outdoor LED floodlight which had arrived. The following day I decided to build the second real time clock. It is the same make but the one thing I noticed was that the back up battery holder was soldered in the opposite way round. Not my mistake as these came part built! Once the extra bits were soldered on and the thing plugged in everything soon sprang in to life.
No doubt having the back up battery reversed will have killed the first one. I did try unsoldering the holder and replacing it the correct way round - no joy there.
The only thing I have noticed is that the clock gains about five seconds a day and there is no way that I know of to adjust its internal oscillator to fix that. I have ordered another, different make, to see if it is a common fault.
After much research I found a way to calibrate the mechanical part of the Rain gauge and it turned out that two tips of the sea-saw buckets equated to one mm of rainfall.
Now on order is an SD card module to store the rainfall data. It should be fun getting that to work (not).
To be able to store past records so as to display daily, weekly and monthly rainfall meant installing a real time clock in the circuit. I had a couple of part built kits bought over a year ago. I chose one and soldered in the resistors and connector, wired it up and spent ages finding and downloading different test sketches. Why do Arduino programmers call their programs sketches?
None of them worked. The display always showed the same gibberish. That had taken up a whole day with just an hour break while I installed a new outdoor LED floodlight which had arrived. The following day I decided to build the second real time clock. It is the same make but the one thing I noticed was that the back up battery holder was soldered in the opposite way round. Not my mistake as these came part built! Once the extra bits were soldered on and the thing plugged in everything soon sprang in to life.
No doubt having the back up battery reversed will have killed the first one. I did try unsoldering the holder and replacing it the correct way round - no joy there.
The only thing I have noticed is that the clock gains about five seconds a day and there is no way that I know of to adjust its internal oscillator to fix that. I have ordered another, different make, to see if it is a common fault.
After much research I found a way to calibrate the mechanical part of the Rain gauge and it turned out that two tips of the sea-saw buckets equated to one mm of rainfall.
Now on order is an SD card module to store the rainfall data. It should be fun getting that to work (not).
Tuesday, 9 October 2012
Penny Meets a Hedgehog
Every night Penny's first task on exiting the back door is to search the regular haunts of the Hedgehog. A couple of nights ago I guessed she had found one. I could only see her reflective collar bobbing up and down as she kept putting her nose on a spiky back. I think she was encouraging it to run but it wisely hunched down and stayed put.
Finally the Hedgehog made a dash for a more sheltered spot while Penny tried to work out why it tickled every time she got her nose too close.
Finally she decided to approach from a different angle where she could stand and watch.
It made me smile as I remembered an incident about a week ago. That night I opened the back door but Penny refused to go out. She kept looking closely at the ground just outside the door. What monster was keeping her in? A small frog! Maybe she is wary of the way they leap about in the dark when she gets too close. Whatever the reason she didn't step outside until I tickled the frog to make it move away. It disappeared under a wheelie bin and Penny spent ages trying to track the monster down.
Finally the Hedgehog made a dash for a more sheltered spot while Penny tried to work out why it tickled every time she got her nose too close.
Finally she decided to approach from a different angle where she could stand and watch.
It made me smile as I remembered an incident about a week ago. That night I opened the back door but Penny refused to go out. She kept looking closely at the ground just outside the door. What monster was keeping her in? A small frog! Maybe she is wary of the way they leap about in the dark when she gets too close. Whatever the reason she didn't step outside until I tickled the frog to make it move away. It disappeared under a wheelie bin and Penny spent ages trying to track the monster down.
Monday, 8 October 2012
Macro on Monday - Guess What
There were a couple of close guesses for last week's Guess What.
It could well be described as embroidery Adrian. Glo was so very close in thinking it was part of Penny's reflective collar. In fact it was a different collar. I had bought this one as it looked very swish with its gold and purple.
Unfortunately having embroidery was not a good choice. I think it was a bit itchy in spite of having a silky lining. Every time she had a good scratch at it her claws caught and pulled the threads. In less that a week it looked really tatty. Lesson learned - for house collars stick to printed materials.
My thanks to those who were brave enough to have a guess.
On to a new Guess What.
Can you work out what this is part of?
Clue; What little boys are made of?
No prizes. Just for fun.
It could well be described as embroidery Adrian. Glo was so very close in thinking it was part of Penny's reflective collar. In fact it was a different collar. I had bought this one as it looked very swish with its gold and purple.
Unfortunately having embroidery was not a good choice. I think it was a bit itchy in spite of having a silky lining. Every time she had a good scratch at it her claws caught and pulled the threads. In less that a week it looked really tatty. Lesson learned - for house collars stick to printed materials.
My thanks to those who were brave enough to have a guess.
On to a new Guess What.
Can you work out what this is part of?
Clue; What little boys are made of?
No prizes. Just for fun.
Sunday, 7 October 2012
The Next Project
A week or so ago the rain gauge on my weather station stopped recording. I wound the mast down and checked things over but couldn't find anything wrong. This is the second time it has happened with my rain recorders. From what I can gather it seems to be a common fault with the cheaper systems.
I had considered buying another one but got to thinking - a dangerous habit which one should try to avoid at all costs. Checking the old rain gauge mechanical bit I found it was still working OK so what about building my own rain gauge? It is a good 18 months since I last had a play with an Arduino micro processor system but that seemed the best route to take as I already had one and other associated bits in the 'junk box'.
Of course in that time the PC software for writing the Arduino programming code had been updated several times so I had to get everything up to date. The idea will be for an Arduino to count the number of times the 'seasaw' buckets in the rain gauge flip and calculate the equivalent rainfall in mm.
This information needs to be stored and retrievable on an LCD readout. This is a first test just to make sure I can send what is needed to a two line LCD module. The Arduino version I am using is the Nano, one of the smallest available, which can be seen towards the bottom of the photo.
There is a long was to go as my one remaining grey cell soon gets rusty and 18 months gives plenty of time to forget how to program the thing. No doubt there will be lots of cursing along the way but it is more entertaining than the pap they shove out on the idiot lantern these days.
I had considered buying another one but got to thinking - a dangerous habit which one should try to avoid at all costs. Checking the old rain gauge mechanical bit I found it was still working OK so what about building my own rain gauge? It is a good 18 months since I last had a play with an Arduino micro processor system but that seemed the best route to take as I already had one and other associated bits in the 'junk box'.
Of course in that time the PC software for writing the Arduino programming code had been updated several times so I had to get everything up to date. The idea will be for an Arduino to count the number of times the 'seasaw' buckets in the rain gauge flip and calculate the equivalent rainfall in mm.
This information needs to be stored and retrievable on an LCD readout. This is a first test just to make sure I can send what is needed to a two line LCD module. The Arduino version I am using is the Nano, one of the smallest available, which can be seen towards the bottom of the photo.
There is a long was to go as my one remaining grey cell soon gets rusty and 18 months gives plenty of time to forget how to program the thing. No doubt there will be lots of cursing along the way but it is more entertaining than the pap they shove out on the idiot lantern these days.
Friday, 5 October 2012
Friday at the Flicks - Bath Time - Squirrel
As all of us who have regular visits from Starlings know, they will bathe in any available water. I had to smile the other day when one decided to use a plant pot saucer as a bath while a few others lined up on the edge of the bird bath to wait their turn. Not one used the bird bath.
A fairly regular visitor at the moment is a particularly bold Grey Squirrel. If I see it I go out to shoo it away before Penny notices as she goes wild in her efforts to catch it. This particular squirrel is hard to scare away and will not move until I get very close. Even then it only moves a short distance in the hope I will go away and it can return to its peanut feast.
When I went to get the code for the squirrel video there was a note from YouTube which said it had been detected as possibly being shaky and asking whether I would like them to fix it. My silent response was 'on yer bike' or words to that effect.
The sound tracks for both videos were produced using MIDI files played back through the iPad app Animoog. (A bit of Handle's Water Music and the Minute Waltz)
Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you.
A fairly regular visitor at the moment is a particularly bold Grey Squirrel. If I see it I go out to shoo it away before Penny notices as she goes wild in her efforts to catch it. This particular squirrel is hard to scare away and will not move until I get very close. Even then it only moves a short distance in the hope I will go away and it can return to its peanut feast.
When I went to get the code for the squirrel video there was a note from YouTube which said it had been detected as possibly being shaky and asking whether I would like them to fix it. My silent response was 'on yer bike' or words to that effect.
The sound tracks for both videos were produced using MIDI files played back through the iPad app Animoog. (A bit of Handle's Water Music and the Minute Waltz)
Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you.
Wednesday, 3 October 2012
Not Hibernating Yet
It can't be very long before the Hedgehogs think about hibernating. Night temperatures are still reasonable at the moment and this one was seen helping itself to dried mealworms just before dawn this morning:
Penny knew it had been about and spent ages at the hole in the fence they use to gain access to the garden.
No sign recently of any activity in the Hedgehog House, not even the mouse.
Penny knew it had been about and spent ages at the hole in the fence they use to gain access to the garden.
No sign recently of any activity in the Hedgehog House, not even the mouse.
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