Roosting Wren

Last night you could have knocked me down with a feather. Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of movement on the camera monitor. There was a Wren approaching the roosting pocket:



The Wren went straight in the pocket so she may well have investigated it some time in the past without me noticing.  I had moved that pocket in the hopes that some small bird would use it in the Winter as an overnight shelter and wasn't expecting any takers in the Summer.  A few years ago a Wren built a nest in another pocket and then abandoned it so we will have to see whether this one becomes a nesting site.

Cloudy Weather

When I let Penny out at 5.30 a.m. this morning I noticed what appeared to be undulating clouds. Can't be sure whether it was regular variations in cloud thickness or whether they were actually undulating. If the latter then it is the first time I have noticed this particular effect:






As many will know I am always on the look out for interesting iPad apps which are available free for a while. One such recently was Living Planet. (still on promotion for free at the time of writing) An app which makes tiny planet type pictures from ordinary single photos. I have seen one or two which can do this. The added extra in this app is the ability to make tiny planet movie clips from ordinary video files. In fact it gives the choice of two methods, tiny planet and wormhole. Also included are many filters to alter the overall look of the finished result.

Two test videos showing the original 15 second clip and the resulting output.
A colour time lapse of clouds:




A b/w IR time lapse of clouds:



Processing video takes quite a while on my iPad 2. No doubt newer iPads with faster processing would reduce the time taken.

Another very useful app I just have started using is PhotoSync which can transfer items to and from the iPad Camera Roll using WiFi. Along with the app there are programs for Mac and PC.

Orchid Macro

The blooms on my first indoor orchid to flower were fading so I cut them off and decided to take a macro shot of the best one. Usual set up:



The flower:



The macro:



19 shots processed in Zerene Stacker

Friday at the Flicks - Feed Me + Intelligent Rook

It has been great watching many different sets of fledglings arrive in the garden over the past few weeks - especially when they are being fed by the parents. Here is a fledgling House Sparrow and Mama on the bird table:




Yesterday, out of the blue, came a mail request from the BTO to ask if they could use one of my videos for a garden rook behaviour survey they will be running in July. It was taken some years ago when my video equipment wasn't as good as the present gear and the copy on Flickr was poor. I have re-worked it in wide screen and uploaded a new copy to YouTube:



At that time several people locally were finding their seed feeders on the floor every day and I was fortunate to catch one of the culprits in the act. Corvids are an an amazingly intelligent set of birds.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

This little experiment was inspired by Adrian (Adrian's Images) when he photographed Brian the Snail on a mirror. Following that we exchanged some ideas about types of mirror. I purchased a cheap A5 front surfaced acrylic 3mm thick mirror and finally got Round Tuit with an experiment. My subject was a miniature bullrush cut from my garden pond positioned so it would be in focus but the reflection would be well out of focus:

 

The 50D was fitted with 70-200mm lens plus Raynox DCR-150 macro lens. The camera was tethered to the MacBook so a clear large picture could be seen of what the camera was looking at. Four focus stacked shots were taken and processed with Zerene Stacker:




The orange background was from some cupboard doors seen reflected in the mirror.  The only lighting was natural daylight / Sunlight coming through the kitchen window.

Swooping Swallows

Normally I see a few Swallows swooping down and across the village cricket field towards the end of Summer when they are stocking up on food ready for the long flight back to Africa. Unusually yesterday there were three doing just that - flying up, swooping down and then skimming just a few inches above the surface of the field. Each would make two or three circuits and then disappear for a short while so I presume there is a nest somewhere no too far away.

Trying to get a photograph of constantly moving, small, high speed fliers is bad enough when they are up in the air. Even more difficult when they are at ground level and rapidly covering the whole field, even coming within a few feet of us as we sat and watched. I tried a few speculative shots with the Nikon and hoped for the best and this was the only one which managed to catch sight of a Swallow:



It is near the bottom left of the photo. All I did was point in the general direction and shoot when they got reasonably close. Far from a brilliant shot but the first I have managed.

It has been estimated that Swallows can achieve a speed in excess of 11 metres per second, 24 mph.

Mrs Great Spotted Woodpecker

8.15 p.m. went through to the kitchen to brew a cuppa when I saw a flash of feathers as a female Great Spotted Woodpecker landed on one of the peanut feeders. All previous sightings of GSWs have been of a male so it made a change to see Mrs. I had already put the cameras to bed as light levels were poor but quickly grabbed the 70D and whooped the ISO up to 12800 in the hopes of getting a few hand held record shots:







Obviously at that high an ISO the background is very grainy. Especially when I processed them to increase the colour and contrast. At least I was able to confirm it was a female - no red patch on the back of the head. Maybe now male and female are visiting I may get to see one or more juveniles in the near future.