Basking in the Sunshine

First - Tricia Ryder's comment yesterday got me thinking about the mystery bird table visitor. She thought it looked like a Dunnock. Well it certainly isn't a mature one. I have several as daily visitors but a Google search for some Dunnock Juvenile photos showed several which almost matched my visitor - pale belly with bold black streaks. In fact when I search I find I had photographed a juvenile Dunnock a couple of years ago.  So it looks as though that is favourite. Whatever it is it has visited several times every day so far. Also visiting the bird table have been two juvenile Robins.

Today has been a scorcher. Cool with heavy rain and hail yesterday morning.
Many creatures have taken advantage of blue skies and temperatures up to 25C:

The Damsel flies have started emerging from my garden pond.
Here a male Blue Tailed Damselfly sunning itself on a rose bush:



and a female on a pond plant:



A Red Admiral taking a short rest:



A Dunnock looking quite bedraggled but actually having a quick sunning session:



On the cricket field a Crow which didn't really want to move out of the way, until we got too close for comfort.:



I say sunning themselves but maybe the birds were actually trying to cool down.

Is this Bird What I Think it is?

A brief visit to the bird table by a bird I haven't noticed before:



Looking through Collins Complete and double checking on t'internet I concluded it was a rare visit to my garden by a Meadow Pipit. But then I could easily be mistaken.

Friday at the Flicks - Great Tits

For about a week I have had a family of Great Tits visiting several times each day. As far as I can tell there are two adults and four youngsters.

A bit of video from the bird table:



There are a few problems with my sound recording. It only seems to happen when there are noisy House Sparrows about. For some reason their chirps seem to distort.

Surveying My Realm

A couple of days ago my attention was drawn to a couple of Carrion Crows kicking up a might din as only crows can:

Eventually one flew off and the remaining one moved to the highest point on a chimney pot and spend quite a long time just gazing around as though it was checking that all was well in his neighbourhood:

Thoughts of a Juvenile Blackbird

Identifying a Garden Plant Using Google Images

This is one of my favourite plants at this time of year. A very hardy ground hugging succulent with a cascade of bright yellow flowers which open in Sunlight.  I have had some growing in a concrete planter for years. It has survived being without water for months, torrential rain and temperatures from -10C to +32C. In drought it will shrivel back a bit but a bit of water and Sunshine and it bursts back into life. It prefers well drained soil.



For the life of me I couldn't remember what it is called. Then I read about using Google Images to try matching my photograph. A facility I didn't know about.

Go to Google Images. Click on the camera icon in the search box (search by image). Choose either a URL with the photo you want to identify or to upload from your computer. (Plants, places, people, almost anything you want to identify)

When I uploaded the above photo I was presented with hundreds of pictures of yellow flowering plants. In the search box at the top it allows you to add text detail so I put 'succulent yellow flower'. This refined the search and I soon found a matching photo. Clicked on that, then off to its website and yippee, name found. Job done.

It turned out the plant is Delosperma nubigenum 'Basutoland' commonly known as the Ice Plant.

In this case I could have just used the normal method of putting a description in Google and might have found the answer just as easily but for some subjects like insects it is harder to describe them. I will have to test the image upload method on a few insect photos I need to identify and see how well it works.

Let There Be Sound

I've tried all sorts of possibilities to get sound on the computer recordings of birds and Hedgehogs. The bird table camera has sound but cabling it through to the computer picked up more mains hum than bird song.

I had a very cheap wireless microphone which almost worked but the distance was near its limit and the sound wasn't too clean. Luckily I managed to pick up a cheap, unused, UHF wireless microphone working on licence free channels. Setting that up yesterday gave much better results. As usual I modified things a bit. The base receiver is mains powered but the microphone unit uses two AA batteries which is fine for occasional use but no so convenient if it's left on for long periods.

A quick think and a Goole explore session gave me an idea. Cut down two dolly pegs (just the right thickness to replace AA cells), attach wire to contacts screwed to the round head of them and use a 12V gell cell with a bit of electronics to give the 3V needed.


Receiver:



Microphone listening through hole in Summerhouse:



Voltage control: (measured output is 2.99V)
Under £4 on Amazon UK.  4-40V in, adjustable 1.25-37V out up to 2A.



Transmitter set up:



A short recording, Sparrow chirping and Blackbird singing:



A bit of 'noise' but as I have 80 channels to choose from I'll have to do a bit more experimenting. Some background noise was probably local grass mowing.


Dolly peg, a traditional shape of clothes peg (clothes pin) made of wood: