All four babies are still there though at least one has a look out of the entrance from time to time. I think it's mainly impatience waiting to be fed, though looking at the size of them they may well fledge this week.
At the start of the second section of this video you will see one youngster hop back down from the entrance hole just before a parent arrives with food.
At the present time the parents are bringing food several time a minute.
Tuesday, 4 June 2013
Panolapse - Part 3
I downloaded the new version of Panolapse yesterday. I couldn't find a description of what is different, added or improved but did notice a tick box for zoom which I hadn't noticed before. In fact the description on the site had previously said that zoom could be added using a normal video processing program. Now it can be done in Panolapse.
Yesterday I took a series of six shots with the Nikon looking across to the Lincolnshire Wolds from one of our usual walks. I used Hugin to stitch them - much better results than the Serif program I usually use.
Next I made 308 copies of that to load in Panolapse.
For this first video panorama I forgot to change the aspect ratio offered in Panolapse so it ended up more CinemaScope than widescreen and I didn't use the zoom feature. Panolapse produced 308 stills which were made into a video using ImageToVideo.
Finally I started Panolapse again and chose 16:9 as the aspect ratio and zoomed in the start of the sequence and let it zoom out as it panned across the panorama:
All the programs I used are free and took a bit of experimenting to get them to do what I want - but that goes for any newly acquired complex program really. What I need now is a new PC with heftier processing capabilities - more memory, faster processor, etc. as the present one is working slowly and flat out when it comes to working with videos.
Nestbox News
It can't be long now before the first baby plucks up courage to leave the nest. Lots of wing exercising going on and at least one has taken a peek through the entrance.
Yesterday I took a series of six shots with the Nikon looking across to the Lincolnshire Wolds from one of our usual walks. I used Hugin to stitch them - much better results than the Serif program I usually use.
Next I made 308 copies of that to load in Panolapse.
For this first video panorama I forgot to change the aspect ratio offered in Panolapse so it ended up more CinemaScope than widescreen and I didn't use the zoom feature. Panolapse produced 308 stills which were made into a video using ImageToVideo.
Finally I started Panolapse again and chose 16:9 as the aspect ratio and zoomed in the start of the sequence and let it zoom out as it panned across the panorama:
All the programs I used are free and took a bit of experimenting to get them to do what I want - but that goes for any newly acquired complex program really. What I need now is a new PC with heftier processing capabilities - more memory, faster processor, etc. as the present one is working slowly and flat out when it comes to working with videos.
Nestbox News
It can't be long now before the first baby plucks up courage to leave the nest. Lots of wing exercising going on and at least one has taken a peek through the entrance.
Monday, 3 June 2013
Macro on Monday - Guess What
Brilliant, congratulations, a full house of correct guesses for last week's mystery photo. The virtual gold star going to TexWisGirl, Adrian, Keith, Jan and Ragged Robin. Yes, it was a close up of a bluebell:
On to a new puzzle photo for this week
Guess What
Clue: far from being legless.
Answers on the back of a £10 note to ... ooops, wrong instruction.
Answers in the comments, which will be revealed along with the answer next Monday.
No prizes, just for fun.
Sunday, 2 June 2013
Squirlz
I was removing a couple of programs from the PC. Looking through the long list of those I had installed I spotted the name Squirlz. Whatever is that? I thought. It had been on the machine, unused, for so long I had quite forgotten what it did. I ended up having to Google it to see. Aha! - a free morphing program. (Squirlz Morph) I don't remember ever trying it out so decided to have a go.
One way to use it is to load two or more pictures and let the program morph between them. On a quick search I settled on two photos of the Great Spotted Woodpecker. The program can attempt to morph without any further help and did a fair job with these two but it does better if control points are placed on both pictures. They are placed on one and the program puts copies in the same place on the other. Then you move those on the second photo so they are on the same features on both.
The control points are little circles so you may have to enlarge the picture to see them clearly.
Once checked on the rough animated preview there is a choice of saving the morphed animation as an animated GIF, an SWF file or an AVI movie file. I tried them all and the results were much the same. The main difference was file size. The first two made files between 11 and 14MB whereas for the .avi there is a choice of compression codecs. I chose mp4 which made a tidy 505KB movie file. Animated GIF and SWF files play the animation repeatedly whereas the AVI plays through once then stops.
Other choices before or during processing and saving are the number of frames and the frame rate. For this example I ended up using 300 frames and a rate of 20fps.
One way to use it is to load two or more pictures and let the program morph between them. On a quick search I settled on two photos of the Great Spotted Woodpecker. The program can attempt to morph without any further help and did a fair job with these two but it does better if control points are placed on both pictures. They are placed on one and the program puts copies in the same place on the other. Then you move those on the second photo so they are on the same features on both.
The control points are little circles so you may have to enlarge the picture to see them clearly.
Once checked on the rough animated preview there is a choice of saving the morphed animation as an animated GIF, an SWF file or an AVI movie file. I tried them all and the results were much the same. The main difference was file size. The first two made files between 11 and 14MB whereas for the .avi there is a choice of compression codecs. I chose mp4 which made a tidy 505KB movie file. Animated GIF and SWF files play the animation repeatedly whereas the AVI plays through once then stops.
Other choices before or during processing and saving are the number of frames and the frame rate. For this example I ended up using 300 frames and a rate of 20fps.
Saturday, 1 June 2013
Live Streaming Glitch
Anyone trying to watch the live stream from the Great Tit nestbox earlier today would have found a missing connection. Not my fault this time. I had noticed a couple of pop up messages from the PC saying it was re-connecting to the router. What I hadn't realized was it had changed its IP address thus breaking the link. It took a while to sort that out but I think I have found a permanent solution so all should be active again now.
At least one youngster is very active with the wing flapping exercises and seems to be wanting to reach the exit hole so it won't be too long before they begin to fledge.
At least one youngster is very active with the wing flapping exercises and seems to be wanting to reach the exit hole so it won't be too long before they begin to fledge.
Two Robins For the Price of One + Nestbox News
Just before I took this photo the Robin on the right had brought a seed from another feeder and gave it to the other:
Two possibilities here. This can happen in the mating season where the male feeds the female as part of the bonding process. Alternatively it could be an adult feeding a fledgling. I lean towards the latter. Either way it is not very often two Robins can be seen so close together without a vicious fight starting.
* As Adrian reminded me, a juvenile Robin would have been speckled and not bright red so this must have been a pair. *
Great Tit Nestbox
The babies have grown really fast these past few days and the way they are climbing out of the nest and exercising their wings means it won't be very long before they fledge:
It is getting crowded in there even with only four youngsters.
Even more so when mum joins them for the night:
Two possibilities here. This can happen in the mating season where the male feeds the female as part of the bonding process. Alternatively it could be an adult feeding a fledgling. I lean towards the latter. Either way it is not very often two Robins can be seen so close together without a vicious fight starting.
* As Adrian reminded me, a juvenile Robin would have been speckled and not bright red so this must have been a pair. *
Great Tit Nestbox
The babies have grown really fast these past few days and the way they are climbing out of the nest and exercising their wings means it won't be very long before they fledge:
It is getting crowded in there even with only four youngsters.
Even more so when mum joins them for the night:
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