Juvenile Blackbird

After tea we spent an hour or so in the back garden enjoying the return of dry weather after days of heavy showers - about 1.5 inches of rain recently. I was trying to video some of the singing birds while Penny sprawled on the grass out and supervised.

During this a juvenile Blackbird arrived, had a drink from one of the pools of rain water and then slowly wandered over the lawn to the Birdy Bistro, passing less than  a couple of metres from me and giving time for some close shots:







On the whole the local Blackbirds are very trusting and one will often come down while I am topping up the feeders.

Highs and Lows

I was altering and checking some of the video feeds in the shed when I hooked up a little monitor to the nest box camera. This year has been a fair disaster as far as the baby Great Tits goes. More had succumbed to whatever the problem has been this year. I did see two remaining healthy chicks leave the nest and saw one of them in a nearby tree a short while later. I'm not sure how many survivors fledged but I doubt it was more than three.

On a happier front a new DVR turned up this morning to replace the old one which is cracking up (all those coloured blocks were rapidly getting worse). I think there is a good improvement in the quality from all the cameras and this one can cope with up to eight.

 

 

Video loss showing as nothing is connected to those inputs yet.

I actually have six cameras set up but as the old DVR could only handle four I was constantly having to change things depending what I wanted to keep an eye on. It needs a bit of rewiring to get everything working but that will have to wait for better weather. No way am I re-cabling during tropical type rain and hail showers.

This bit of video was recorded from a live feed through the DVR:
It looks to me to be a juvenile Blackbird which was sheltering from the rain:



Just some more settings to adjust to get better colour balance from each camera. I'm still learning my way round all the menus on the thing!

Going Green Invisibly

No - I haven't joined the Green Party, painted myself or Penny green, or been decorating. Since I got the MacBook and found out that iMovie could work with green screen photos or videos I've wanted to experiment. A few days ago I spotted an excellent 'how to' on the Instructables site and immediately stuck it on Pocket for future reference.

Today I gave it a whirl for the first time. First I took some video of the rain clouds which are plentiful here at the moment. Then I looked for a subject to add to that. In the end I chose a daisy and set up a Heath Robinson 'set' to take the photograph against a sheet of green paper:



The important thing was to try to evenly illuminate the green background so iMovie would have least difficulty in removing the colour.

Not perfect, and I think it might have been better if I masked out the daisy stem. The video wobbles a bit as I had the Lumix resting on a fence trying to hold it still against a blustery wind but the main thing was the idea worked:



For those with Macs and iMovie who want to experiment here is the link to the Instructable.

Now We Are Two (weeks old)

The six surviving Great Tit babies appear to be progressing well. They often spend time preening and flapping their tiny wings.

Kermit's Cousin and a new Bird Table Camera

Having a last look round the back garden last night I spotted a common frog just waiting to have its portrait taken:






Yesterday the new camera arrived for the Bird Table. It is definitely an improvement in quality. The only problem is it is not quite as wide angle as the old one. Looks as though the Round Tuit now has a new entry - build a taller Bird Table to get the camera a bit further away from the birds and angle it to give a part side view.

The video is in two parts
1st  Old Camera - A juvenile Robin stood on the seeds but hoping to be fed.
2nd  New Camera - visiting male Chaffinch:



The camera is not waterproof so I hope the table roof is as it is purposefully precipitating at the moment.

Great Tit Nest Box:  There has been no adult roosting with the babies for three nights. I'm not sure what is going on.  We have lost two of the babies. Maybe a shortfall of food or too much competition from the strongest or possibly got too cold over night. Only six active beaks now when an adult arrives with food. So far the survivors are looking healthy. Not all the hatchlings survived last year.

12 Day Old GTs + Heath Robinson Strikes Again

I was a tad surprised and a bit alarmed when I saw that Mama didn't sleep in the nest box on Tuesday night. The night before she had spent much of her time trying to sleep on the edge of the nest. I guess she sensed the babies were getting too hot, and maybe a bit too fidgety for sound sleep. Anyway Wednesday started and continued well with the babies being regularly fed. Some visits were so close together that I guess both parents were involved.  Some video from Wednesday, notice that at least some of the chicks now have their eyes open::




For yonks I've contemplated fixing a camera in the bird table so I can get a closer view of just what visits. One of those long outstanding Round Tuits. Tuesday I tried a Mk 1 solution by modifying an old nest box to see how well the idea would work. Good piccies but the camera (a colour board camera bought from Maplins many years ago) was too close in that box. BTW, it took the Starlings less than 15 minutes to find this new feeding station.

Wednesday I set about a Mk 2 version. This time I took off the old rotten roof from the bird table, installed and tested the camera and then put a new roof on made from clear perspex. In retrospect that was a bad decision. The camera doesn't really need any extra daylight and also the flickering Sunlight filtering through nearby bushes keeps triggering the recorder.

Some resulting video from both:
(the scrappy, glitchy bits are from the recorder not the camera)



I think I have to re-focus the camera a bit though I have a better one on the way so I may wait until then. The present one is daylight only, the new one will be colour by day and b/w at night.

Legs, Legs and Yet More Legs

Moved a piece of wood and spotted this magnificent jet black millipede:





Only managed 8 seconds of video. With all those legs it could move quite fast as it was determined to get back in the shade:



Each segment has two pair of legs.