Busy Collecting Nectar

I have no idea what this bush is which hangs over from next doors garden but it was attracting scores of bees and other insects:

(P.S.  After a Google session I think it's Ligustrum sinense, Chinese privet.)







My favourite of over 70 shots I took that session.
A bee laden with pollen coming in to collect more:

Recent Sunspots

Next ambition is to get a shot of the International Space Station passing in front of the Sun. Doesn't happen very often for any particular viewpoint on Earth. Also the timing has to be accurate as a pass only lasts a few seconds.

Tuesday Twister - Guess What

Congratulations and virtual gold stars go to Wilma, Adrian and TexWisGirl who successfully identified the twisted Robin in last week's Guess What:

   


This week's twisted photo was made using the InstaFisheye app on the iPad. This method inverts the photo in the background and also places the photo as if seen in a crystal ball in the centre. The photo was also zoomed to give....

Guess What:



Please put any guesses in the comments. They will be revealed next Tuesday along with the answer. No prizes, just for fun and a virtual gold star.

Mrs GSW Still Visiting

One or both Great Spotted Woodpeckers could well be visiting the peanut feeder ever day. They stay for such a short while it is pure luck if I happen to see one. Yesterday it was the turn of the female to arrive while I was watching from the kitchen window:



This time I used the basic free version of the Mac app Photohive which puts the photos in cells like they were in a beehive. As you can gather I had a session downloading several free apps which produce different types of collages. It's nice to ring the changes from time to time.

Photos taken with the Canon 70D. ISO set to 5000 as it was still somewhat dull after a morning of heavy rain. Photos enhanced in iPhoto as contrast tends to be rather flat with high settings of ISO.

When is a Hopping Frog not a Hopping Frog?

When it's a Frog Hopper:



Remember that frothy Cuckoo Spit (also called frog or snake spit) on my Pinks? This is the creature which emerges when the nymphs hidden in the froth mature. Length about 6mm.

It was half way up the door frame of my conservatory and stayed long enough for one shot before it just vanished from view - hopped away! They are capable of leaping many times their height and length. Some can leap up to 70cm vertically and accellerate at 4,000 m/s2 over 2mm as they jump. Some can jump 100 times their length. All in all well named as Frog Hoppers.  Information from Wikipedia.

Photograph, cropped, taken with my Nikon Coolpix S9050
Picture produced using the Mac app PicCollage Lite.

Sparrowhawks 1 Starlings -1

I knew the cacophony the young Starlings kick up would eventually attract another visitor to the garden:



Collage produced using the Mac app CollageFactory Free.

Friday at the Flicks - Roosting Again + Bottoms Up + Panorama Experiment

After an absence of six nights the Wren spent another night sleeping in the roosting pocket.




Walking past a tub filled with Pinks in full bloom I noticed how deep the Bumble Bees had to go to get at the nectar. Good for the plant as it forces the hairy bee to brush against the pollen which will get carried to other plants to fertilise the embryonic seeds.



Some flowers are easier than others for a large Bumble Bee to gain entrance to the nectar.  Phil Gates in his blog Cabinet of Curiosities has just explained with beautiful close up photos how hard they have to work to get in the flowers of the Foxglove. See Bumblebees and the Foxglove Challenge.


Yet another experiment. The iMovie Mac app has a zoom facility called the Ken Burns effect which allows me to very easily fix a start point and size along with a finish point and size to give zoom and / or pan effects to movies or stills. This experiment started with one of my old panorama shots taken with the iPhone:



Pasted in iMovie and the Ken Burns crop / zoom effect applied to give a panned video view across the still picture:





I will have to take some more detailed panoramas around the area and see how they look as pseudo videos.

Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you.