Tuesday Twister - Guess What

I guess it may have been difficult to see exactly what the twisted creature was last week. The virtual gold star goes to Adrian and Ragged Robin for working out that it was a newt. (A common newt)









Getting close were TexWisGirl and Wilma with suggestions of skink and salamander and are awarded the virtual silver star.









   

On to the new twisted photo. The Living Planet app I normally use has been updated and stopped working on my iPad2 so I used an app called Circular instead. This turns a photo into a kaleidoscope type effect with a choice of how many repetitions to make.

Guess What:


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

A Wash and Brush Up

Finally got round to cleaning out the nest box used by the Great Tits last Spring. Cleared out the old nest, swept out, sprayed with bird table cleaner, ventilated, washed out with plain water, ventilated, camera lens cleaned and all then put back together:

   

   

All the time my works supervisor was keeping a close eye on things from the warmest spot:



I disconnected the camera which watches the outside of the hedgehog house so I could re-connect the nest box camera. I was going to disconnect the roosting pouch camera but the last couple of nights a wren was using the pouch again. So the available cameras for recording are now:



Now it's a wait and see game hoping a Great or Blue Tit will use the box as a roost now the nights are getting colder. Saturday night / Sunday morning got down to 5.6C

Green Bug

A few days ago I spotted this common green shield bug (Palomena prasina) resting on the dead flower head of a buddleia bush:







I tried to get a front on view but as I moved the camera round the bug moved to keep the same side facing me.

Clean Birds

Yesterday I decided to resurrect my old home constructed PIR camera switch which I used to use on the pond waterfall to detect any birds bathing there. It had partly fallen apart where the sticky fixers holding things in place had dried out. Once put back together and checked to be working I set it up near the bird bath:

   

It consists of a room PIR module (white) which operates a relay (blue) which in turn activates a wireless camera shutter switch (black with aerial). This is received by the wireless receiver dangling from the 70D which was set up in the kitchen:



Once I had the PIR in a reasonable position the camera was fired most times when a bird visited the bird bath. About 130 photos were taken during the day.  Most numerous visitors were the Starlings which always take full advantage of any available bathing water:













Everything and everybody who gets too close has a free shower.
Definitely a case of splash it all over.
Recording video cannot be started automatically, not with my setup anyway. I was fortunate to be close to the camera when the Starlings decided it was bath time:

Friday at the Flicks - Disturbed Ants + Homeward Drive

I was moving some planters around when I found the inevitable ants nest under one. They immediately started rushing about moving their eggs to a safe place:



This time, by special request from Mick in Australia, the journey home from the Wagon and Horses has been saved at 1x, normal speed.  I am told the burned out house near the start of the journey is the final result of a domestic dispute. The journey ends when I stopped off at a post office near home:



At normal speed the Hyperlapse also saves the sound so you get the same music I was listening to during the journey.

Hard At It - On The Land

On our mid-day walkies down to the cricket field I could hear some almighty clanking so I guessed there was work being done on the adjacent fields. So, we went to have a look:

On one field the work was close enough for some good shots and a bit of video:



Work on the other field was at the far end so I am not sure whether they were sowing or fertilising:



The disc harrow at work:



You could almost think the Nikon was tripod mounted but in fact it was hand held and the original video was very wobbly. The stabilisation process in iMovie on the Mac can work really well at times, as it did for that video.


I think I have mentioned before that I am always on the look out for Apple apps which have gone free for a short while. One good place is the appshopper.com site. There, new price reductions can be listed for iOS and Mac apps. Also, if you sign up to the site and you spot or hear about an app which is a bit more than you want to pay you can search for and mark it on site as 'want it' and as soon as its price changes the site will email you. That is the only type of communication you get from there - no spam.

Yesterday I noticed a Mac app called 'Dramatic Black & White' had reduced from £3.99 to free for a short while. I checked it out and read the reviews on the Apple Mac App Store and decided to download it.

These are a couple of quick trial photos I converted to B/W with the app:





There are good facilities in the app for adjusting what they call 'spotlight' and introduce grain to simulate a b/w film along with adjustments to contrast, tint, etc..

Gulls Galore

I often see large flocks of gulls, usually travelling from one field to another. A couple of days ago there were more than fifty all soaring round above the same part of the village. Often swooping down just like enormous Swallows. I would guess they were hunting insects and spent a good half hour cruising the same area before moving on. Given the number of gulls and the length of time they were around there must have been a lot of insects though they were too high up to make any out.

I grabbed the 70D with the 300mm zoom half expecting the gulls would have gone by the time I was ready to shoot - which is what usually happens - but this time I was able to get some aerial shots, at times nearly falling over backwards as I tracked them directly overhead.









I assume from their markings they were all Black-headed Gulls in their Winter plumage.