Mrs GT making brief visits to the nestbox and still fetching nesting material:
Great Tit Nest Building April 2013 from Midmarsh on Vimeo.
Friday, 19 April 2013
Busy Little Mrs GT
Wow. It's a week or so since I last checked the nest box so it came as a surprise this morning to see how busy Mrs Great Tit has been in that time. It looks as though the nest is finished and contains what appears to me to be two eggs so far.
Will try to get some video later on.
Will try to get some video later on.
Thursday, 18 April 2013
We Have the Technology
One of the final jobs in the summerhouse was to provide power. To that end I installed a couple of double sockets - you can never have too many.
One of my most useful buys for checking the wiring of mains sockets is a little tester. Plug it in and if all three lights illuminate all is well. Any other combination of lights will indicate what is wrong with the wiring.
The yellow cable is Arctic Cable, suitable for outdoor use down to something like -20C. It travels outside to the shed where it plugs in an RCD socket fed from the shed's main fuse box.
Another recent useful buy, for me anyway, was a packet of two large cloths for cleaning screens on tablets, computers, tvs, etc. Also good with spectacles and said to be usable on lenses. The latter I haven't tried as yet. They are not the cheapest of cloths but they seem to do an excellent job very quickly.
I had read some excellent reviews of 'Mobile Cloth' and they seem to live up to the job. As usual I bought mine on Amazon where they are available in a couple of sizes. As always your mileage may vary. I just report things which work well for me.
One of my most useful buys for checking the wiring of mains sockets is a little tester. Plug it in and if all three lights illuminate all is well. Any other combination of lights will indicate what is wrong with the wiring.
The yellow cable is Arctic Cable, suitable for outdoor use down to something like -20C. It travels outside to the shed where it plugs in an RCD socket fed from the shed's main fuse box.
Another recent useful buy, for me anyway, was a packet of two large cloths for cleaning screens on tablets, computers, tvs, etc. Also good with spectacles and said to be usable on lenses. The latter I haven't tried as yet. They are not the cheapest of cloths but they seem to do an excellent job very quickly.
I had read some excellent reviews of 'Mobile Cloth' and they seem to live up to the job. As usual I bought mine on Amazon where they are available in a couple of sizes. As always your mileage may vary. I just report things which work well for me.
Wednesday, 17 April 2013
Green and Brown and Things
Why is it always dull when I see something interesting, to me anyway, I want to photograph? A couple of grainy photos of infrequent visitors to my garden feeders, a Greenfinch and a female Blackcap on the same feeder:
The Blackcap is a fleeting visitor who will probably move on soon. Greenfinch numbers have suffered greatly in this area with many succumbing to finch disease over the past three years.
The laptop duly arrived on time. It is hard to believe it is second hand, not a mark on it. Soon had it logged in to my wireless network and tried out in the summerhouse. Much to my relief it worked perfectly:
Some things I like the iPad for but for browsing / surfing I find a 10 inch screen is too small. Now I am grappling and coming to terms with Windozy 7 as my main PC is still using XP. One of the reasons, besides cost, for buying s/h was that most new ones I was interested in now seem to have Windozy 8 loaded and I have no interest in that. I might have been tempted to go for a Mac of some sort but even used ones seem to cost the earth.
A few signs of Spring - finally there is frog spawn in the pond:
My primulas are flowering, when the ungrateful birds stop pulling them up and today I had the first wasp indoors. I killed a couple today. They were both very dopey and lethargic so I guess they had recently become active. The more early ones I can dispatch the fewer nests there will be later in the year.
The Blackcap is a fleeting visitor who will probably move on soon. Greenfinch numbers have suffered greatly in this area with many succumbing to finch disease over the past three years.
The laptop duly arrived on time. It is hard to believe it is second hand, not a mark on it. Soon had it logged in to my wireless network and tried out in the summerhouse. Much to my relief it worked perfectly:
Some things I like the iPad for but for browsing / surfing I find a 10 inch screen is too small. Now I am grappling and coming to terms with Windozy 7 as my main PC is still using XP. One of the reasons, besides cost, for buying s/h was that most new ones I was interested in now seem to have Windozy 8 loaded and I have no interest in that. I might have been tempted to go for a Mac of some sort but even used ones seem to cost the earth.
A few signs of Spring - finally there is frog spawn in the pond:
My primulas are flowering, when the ungrateful birds stop pulling them up and today I had the first wasp indoors. I killed a couple today. They were both very dopey and lethargic so I guess they had recently become active. The more early ones I can dispatch the fewer nests there will be later in the year.
Monday, 15 April 2013
Macro on Monday - Guess What
Just the two correct answers for the last Guess What. Congratulations and virtual gold stars go to TexWisGirl and Jan for identifying part of a belt. Could definitely be an embarrassing drop without it.
On to a new macro photo
Guess What:
 |
| iPhone4 with add on macro lens |
Clue: No longer flying high.
No prizes, just for fun.
Saturday, 13 April 2013
Nearly Ready for Summer
The little summer house is very nearly finished and ready for occupation. Just a few bits of tarting up to do. Also waiting for the first decent rain to see whether there are any leaks which need seeing to.
Looking In:
Looking Out:
Not a very inspiring view but I positioned it so I could see the pond waterfall (in front of the blue water barrels) where birds like to bathe. They don't notice me in there so I should get some decent photographs later in the year.
This morning was fraught - not a lot new there then. I want to be able to use the iPad and a cheap s/h laptop I have ordered while in the summer house. My wireless router doesn't have a strong enough signal to reach outside so I bought a Netgear WiFi Range Extender (WN3000RP) from Amazon. The idea being to have that in the kitchen to boost the signal outdoors. It arrive this morning and I spent hours trying to get the thing to work. It would connect to the router but nothing would connect to it. In the end I phoned the Netgear 24/7 support line (an 0844 number so that cost me money!). It took 40 minutes to set things up but in the end it was worth it as all seems to be working perfectly now. Just hope the laptop connects OK when it arrives. I must say that I was very pleased with the support person who was patient, friendly and knowledgeable. I was quite surprised when I asked him where he was and found that support is in the Philippines. Netgear support is free for 90 days and from this experience I would describe it as superb.
Looking In:
Looking Out:
Not a very inspiring view but I positioned it so I could see the pond waterfall (in front of the blue water barrels) where birds like to bathe. They don't notice me in there so I should get some decent photographs later in the year.
This morning was fraught - not a lot new there then. I want to be able to use the iPad and a cheap s/h laptop I have ordered while in the summer house. My wireless router doesn't have a strong enough signal to reach outside so I bought a Netgear WiFi Range Extender (WN3000RP) from Amazon. The idea being to have that in the kitchen to boost the signal outdoors. It arrive this morning and I spent hours trying to get the thing to work. It would connect to the router but nothing would connect to it. In the end I phoned the Netgear 24/7 support line (an 0844 number so that cost me money!). It took 40 minutes to set things up but in the end it was worth it as all seems to be working perfectly now. Just hope the laptop connects OK when it arrives. I must say that I was very pleased with the support person who was patient, friendly and knowledgeable. I was quite surprised when I asked him where he was and found that support is in the Philippines. Netgear support is free for 90 days and from this experience I would describe it as superb.
Friday, 12 April 2013
Friday at the Flicks - Female Blackcap
The male Blackcap has continued to visit the seed feeders fairly often. Much rarer are sightings of the female so it was pure luck I managed to take some video a couple of days ago:
Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you.
Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you.
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