The Return of Mr P?

Of course this may not be the same pheasant which visited a few times last year. He was doing a grand job of clearing up the seeds scattered by the smaller birds. It must have stayed well over half an hour which gave plenty of time for some still and video shots:









Pheasant and Blackbird - which gives a good idea of their relative sizes:



Finally some silent video, shot hand held with the Canon 70D fitted with 100-400mm zoom lens:

First Frost of the Year

This morning we had our first real frosty conditions of 2014. When I got up the outside temperature was -2.7C and most things were white over with frost.

By the time we went walk-about it had risen to -1.7C with a thin cloud cover:



On our return I took a few photos of the frost crystals.
The lawn:



Most plants:



A frozen cobweb on the greenhouse:



 Ice crystals on a water barrel:

 

Macro view:



Macro view of frost pattern on the summerhouse window:




Penny



This was Penny still a bit dopey and sore on her return from the vets last Wednesday. Nice sparky white teeth but two less than she went with. Poor lass, that is now four less than she had a year ago.  Tooth decay can be a major problem with retired greyhounds. She is still a bit sore but that hasn't blunted her appetite though she is on soft food until everything has healed.

Storm Warning, Possible Aurora Conditions

Looking at SpaceWeather.com today I see that NASA has estimated a 90% chance of geomagnetic storms tonight. The speed of the solar wind around Earth could peak at 1.6 million mph compressing the Earth's magnetosphere. Given a clear sky an aurora might be seen from northern parts of the UK. I have seen one photo of a faint aurora which was taken in Scotland within the past week.

Unfortunately it looks as though many areas will be under cloud cover as shown in a tweet from AuroraWatchUK.

More Than a Bit on the Wet Side

For those who haven't found it yet the Environment Agency have a live flood warning map for England and Wales. This is what it looked like this morning:



The map is updated every fifteen minutes, can be zoomed to show more detail and each of the warnings can be clicked on to give more details.

Information for Scotland can be found on the Scottish Environment Protection Agency site.

Not All Bad

While much of the West and South of the British Isles was suffering with flooding from exceptionally high tides and gale force winds here on the Eastern side of the country it was quite a pleasant day though with cold blustery winds from time to time. It wasn't until nearly Sunset that clouds started to roll across the county.

These photos were taken looking across to the Lincolnshire Wolds as we made our way back home from a visit to the vet:





Once again Penny is suffering with problems with her teeth so she will be back at the vets next week for some more treatment. It can be a regular problem with retired racing greyhounds.

Blue Tit + Goldcrest?

Spotted a Blue Tit right at the top of a tree next door but as I focussed on the little darling it flew off. Fortunately it returned lower down and in the open, staying there for a while while I took a few shots - almost as though it was posing for me:







A short while before that I had spotted a small bird in a Christmas Tree - one which my neighbour had planted out many years ago. I couldn't get a clear, sharp photo so this record shot has to do. I am reasonably certain it was a Goldcrest:



I have seen one visit on rare occasions in the past.

Final Sunset of 2013

For far too short a time on the last day of 2013 we had a spectacular Sunset: