Taking Advantage of the Wet Weather.

The blackbirds love it when the back lawn get saturated with so much rain. That drives the worms to the surface so they make easy pickings:



I had to smile as the Blackbird wrestled with this small worm which kept curling round his beak.

It's Rude to Spit .....

.... unless you're a Frog Hopper producing what is colloquially known as Cuckoo Spit.
This is the way the nymphs protect themselves:



Now, what is this just poking its head out of the spittle?



A cropped closer look:



I do believe it is the head and front legs of a Frog Hopper.

Correction: After Adrian's comment that t might be a spider I checked today. It was in exactly the same place so I fished it out. Then I could see that it was a small spider which had perished in the sticky spittle.

Macro photos taken with Canon 50D + 70-200mm zoom + Raynox macro lens.
1st photo is 2 stacked shots and the 2nd is 4 stacked shots using Zerene Stacker.

A good description of the life of a Frog Hopper can be found on this BBC site.
Link opens in a new tab / window.

Moo

In one of the paddocks which used to have sheep I see there are several cattle for a change:

I had taken a couple of photos which almost made a panoramic shot so I downloaded a copy of Hugin and after a couple of attempts it did quite a good job of stitching them together:



A few closer views:









Most of them were laid down enjoying the Sunshine as we approached but, as I have found in the past, cattle like to know who is about so up most of them stood to get a closer look.

Indoor Orchids

How time flies. It's about two months since I mentioned I was returning to growing orchids indoors after a break of over a decade. I bought a vivarium / terrarium to house miniature orchids and built a top to hold the lighting which would be needed:



All the lighting is LED which keeps the buying and running cost down and are very cool running so I don't have to worry about overheating. The lid is deep enough that the lamps cannot be seen directly. There is a mesh strip built in the front of the case, just below the glass doors and an added computer fan at the top gives some needed air movement.



Three large lamps give strong red and blue light needed for growth and flowering. Two small white lamps for evening viewing and the blue strip gives a pleasant moonlight effect at night.

Centre and left are miniature Phalaenopsis which I purchased in flower and on the right a Disa Unifoam which has grown and just started flowering in the terrarium:





    

The fun is now bringing on the other plants to flowering condition. They are sprayed each morning with a fine mist of rain water and the pots watered as needed.

Juvenile Great Tit

A short while ago I spotted a juvenile Great Tit being fed on top of the shed.
Unfortunately it was about 8 p.m. so lighting wasn't very good:





I don't know whether it was one which fledged from the camera nest box though I would have thought those would have been feeding themselves by now.

Weather Station

My old weather station had been failing for several months, first the rain gauge failed, then the anemometer jammed and finally the wireless reception became intermittent. So I finally made my mind up to replace it. My final choice was the Oregon Scientific WRM180. Production of this model seems to have ceased so the selling price of the remaining stock had rocketed down from £199.99 to £99.99 on Amazon UK. The main part arrived Wednesday so I wound the mast over and spent the afternoon dismantling the old one and setting up the new. The final part, a UV monitor, arrived yesterday to complete my set up:

Wireless receiver and display


Wireless USB connection to the computer


Mast mounted anemometer, wind vane, outdoor temperature and humidity
monitors with solar panel to save battery use in daylight


Rain gauge and UV monitor on greenhouse


It is provided with a copy of Virtual Weather Station for Windozy


It took a while to get everything to communicate properly but all seems to be running smoothly at the moment, just in time to test the rain gauge last night as stormy weather passed through kindy providing me with an extra temporary pond in the back garden:

White Ermine Moth

Any moth species is far from being my favourite find but the startling white of this White Ermine Moth seen on the back door to my garage was worth a couple of close shots with the Nikon:





As long as it stays outside it is welcome to visit.