Macro on Monday - Guess What

Not too many problems with last week's mystery photo. My congratulations along with the virtual gold star goes to TexWisGirl, Adrian, Keith and Ragged Robin for correctly recognising a nettle leaf which was photographed from underneath.








I don't think this week's mystery photo will cause too many problems.
Guess What:


Clue: It didn't ring in the New Year.

No prizes, just for fun.

Great Tit Nestbox Update

As any of you who have been keeping up with the Great Tit chicks will have notices there are now only four live ones. Sadly one died sometime last Friday night / Saturday morning. The same thing happened last year. The remaining four look to be healthy and I noticed today that at least one has its eyes wide open and is starting to exercise its wings.

Follow the Leader

When we went walkabout round the cricket field at lunch time I could see a small flock of sheep a couple of paddocks away.

 

All of a sudden one decided to stroll over to the other side of the field. Within a minute all the others lived up to their reputation and followed.

Great Tit Babies

Another short video clip taken yesterday of the five Great Tit babies being fed. Even in black and white it can be seen that they are growing their wing feathers:



Although they are both using the same uplink line, yesterday I tried uploading the video clip from the laptop while the PC kept the live streaming running. If I try both together on the PC I can guarantee the upload to YouTube will stall but yesterday it ran fairly smoothly. Maybe it was a one off and I got lucky.

Double size streaming video available on midmarshnn. It cannot be seen on an iPhone, iPad, etc. as they do not have the right video decoder as yet. If you have problems viewing the streaming video on a PC or Mac have a look at the information on this Camstreams help page.

Woody Returns

It's been one of those days weather wise. A bit of sunshine first thing followed by grey cloud and frequent short, sharp hail showers so it was quite a surprise to see a Great Spotted Woodpecker visit the peanut feeder. The first one I have spotted for weeks:





Shortly after that I noticed it land on the telephone pole just past the end of the garden. It started low down and gradually crept up the pole exploring any cracks in the woodwork. Finally it reached the top and after a quick look round, flew away:

  

If you are watching the live feed from the Great Tit nestbox you may occasionally see that I have had to pause the feed so I can upload photos or videos. You may have to refresh the page to get the feed started again once I have re-started it.

Great Tit Nestbox

For those who cannot see the streaming video from Camstreams here is a short piece of video I captured this morning:



If you are having problems viewing the Camstreams live video they have a help page here.

Song Thrush

Firstly - sorry if you were trying to take a peek in the Great Tit nest last night. While a video was uploading I had to stop the streaming video. Unfortunately it took ages to get the file up to YouTube.

Recently there has been a Song Thrush belting out its song very close by. Up to yesterday evening I was never able to see where it was but by the volume it must have been close. Finally it decided to choose a place where I could see it from the kitchen window so set up the Hitachi DVD cam to get some of the song. It shows how loud the bird can be when the sound had to go through the conservatory open door through to the kitchen.



A Blackbird can also be heard in the background. That was a very short section of the song which went on for about an hour.

Macro on Monday - Guess What

A brilliant week last week as everyone identified the dandelion seed correctly. Congratulations and virtual gold stars to Adrian, TexWisGirl, ImaBurdie, Matron and Ragged Robin.







It has been a good, or bad,  year so far for dandelions. They have spread copiously everywhere so your outlook depends whether you are a seed eater or a gardener!

Now for this week's macro photo
Guess What:


Clue: Ouch!      No prizes, just for fun.


Chaffinch
For once I was quick enough off the mark. As I was passing the seed feeders on the way  back after photographing a dandelion a male Chaffinch landed on a feeder and stayed there just long enough for me to get one shot. I was only 8 feet or so away and grateful it didn't take flight while I zoomed the Nikon in on it. Following a suggestion from Adrian I now have the Nikon permanently set to -1 exposure. That means I usually have to lighten the finished photo a bit but highlight blow out is lessened and detail seems much crisper.




Nestbox
It seems pretty certain now that just five of the eight eggs have hatched. The ones laid first had to endure some chilly conditions. Those five seem to be coming along just fine and are growing rapidly. Both parents are doing a grand job finding enough small food for them as weather conditions are very variable going from damp, cool overcast to occasional warm, sunny periods. The double size streaming video from the nest box is available on midmarshnn which is a bare-bones blog I set up just for that one thing.