Friday at the Flicks - Feeding Fledgling Sparrow

 

 For a while the fledgling House Sparrow sat on some trellis while papa fetched food. I don't think the youngster was long out of the nest as I could still see the yellow marking along its beak.



Have a great weekend observing nature around you.

House Sparrow Feeds Youngster.

Plenty of broods visiting the garden this year but it has been noticeable that many only have one or two fledglings. This time it was the turn of a male House Sparrow. At one time the baby had settled on a garden cane. In their own way they are just as agile as Blue Tits.







Papa was gathering bits from a nearby feeder which contains a mixture of peanuts and large suet sticks. Some video tomorrow.

An Unexpected Flash of Colour

The rarer garden visitors always appear when least expected with a camera being in the wrong room. Nipped through to the kitchen and spotted bright orange/red down the end of the garden. A male Bullfinch. Only the second time I have seen one visit. Grabbed the camera and, of course, it was nowhere to be seen. Hung around, watching and hoping, and spotted some movement near the back of the greenhouse. A female Bullfinch. This time I was able to grab a few shots before she vanished:





I carried on watching and you could have knocked me down with a feather when two appeared together including the brightly coloured male:





Only record shots as the light was fading but seeing them seems a good enough reason to allow the odd dandelion to go to seed. I did wonder whether the paler coloured one was a juvenile. It did seem to be taking food from the male but the head should be brown on a youngster.

A Short Trip Out

Bank Holiday Monday I decided to brave the traffic flowing to the coast and headed into the Lincolnshire Wolds. Many have the impression that all of Lincolnshire is flat and that description certainly applies to the narrow coastal plain where I live and to the Southern part of the county. Not mountainous the Lincolnshire Wolds are full of undulating and steep sided valleys carved out by glaciers in the various Ice Ages which covered most of the country.

5.75 min video from when I turned off the A16 heading for the Bluestone Heath Road. That was the theory but with my usual fantastic navigation skills, just after passing a cyclist, I went straight through the crossroads where I should have turned left:



Much as I tried it seems very difficult to show the full effect with photos but here are a few from the vantage point where I stopped on a wide verge to let Penny stretch her legs and brave a cool breeze. Where conditions had been bright and Sunny before setting off they soon turned duller with thick cloud cover. To rescue some colour and contrast these photos were tweaked using the Contrasted Light_14 filter in Simply HDR.

The battle wagon parked up:
 

Views from this point:








5.5 min video. Part of the return journey on the A16 turning right at the roundabout at the top of Kenwick Hill where the road drops off the edge of the Wolds down to the Lincolnshire coastal plain:



I found the Honda Jazz somewhat noisier with wind and road noise than the Mitsubishi Charisma but to make up for that it gave me 54.4mpg over the 30 mile round trip.

Sad to read that Lincolnshire's narrow roads are becoming more dangerous again. This month, with a week to go, has turned out to be the worst for several years with 14 RTAs. Unfortunately six of those have ended with fatalities. No so long ago two of our roads were listed among the most dangerous in the country.

Macro on Monday - Answer

Hi folks, sorry but for various reasons I don't have a new macro for this week but here is the update on last week's mystery photo:



Great that everyone identified the macro shot of a dandelion seed head. Congratulations and the virtual Midmarsh Gold Star to Adrian, Wilma, TexWisGirl, ImaBurdie and Ragged Robin.

   

Hopefully I'll manage to find a new macro for next Monday.

Confusion

Blogger may be trying to show the wrong version of today's post as I had to edit it after finding I had misread an identification and edited the title. Hopefully the correct one will show after / below this one.

A Pretty Shock

I had decided to give the nursery pond a good clean out. Having moved one plant to the main pond I had just lifted the larger plant out and was removing the half log surround when I spotted something fly away. It didn't fly far enough for my liking and landed in the plant I wanted to move.

Can you spot it?



Maybe not yet as I stayed a good distance away for the first shot. Once I was reasonably certain it had settled and wasn't going to make any sudden movement I leaned a bit closer and zoomed in to take a few closer shots. This is the best one cropped:



An Angle Shades moth. ( Phlogophora meticulosa) Length about 1.5 inches and wingspan of  just over 2 inches. (35mm x 50mm). With my feelings towards larger moths, pretty as it was, I didn't stay close for very long. Not too bad when they are outdoors and still. As long as it doesn't decide to find its way indoors.

Crazy isn't it? A butterfly that size and I would be trying to creep as close as possible but with a moth I have this instant reaction of wanting to flee as fast and as far away as can be. If it was indoors I wouldn't be able to stay in the same room.