Saturday Cinema - Halloween

Creating a Video for Halloween

I had been toying with the idea of a display for my bay window on Halloween:



I'm still not sure whether I will use it as it may be too scary for any little ones who see it so I decided to use it as the main character in a video I've been working on which will be uploaded Saturday rather than Friday.

The Skull has several 12V LED lights, one inside it and others around it. They are controlled by an Arduino programmable mini computer so each is switched on and off at random intervals. The lighting is a mixture of a white skull with red and green surrounding lights. In total darkness the effect could look very scary.

Web's Eye View

The one nice thing about misty and foggy mornings is the way the water droplets form on spiders' webs making them much more visible:







For the following four photos I held  a small LED light to the side of the web:








Every water droplet in the last photo shows a reflection of the ring LED lights which were in front of the camera lens for this macro shot:

All Gone Now

Just a couple of photos of Autumn colours taken a week or so ago:





All that is left now are bare branches and fallen leaves blowing in the wind.

Monday Mystery - Guess What

Congratulations and the virtual Midmarsh Gold Star go to Adrian, Ragged Robin and The Weaver of Grass who all recognised the Pheasant in last week's mystery photo.

   

Now for a new object scrambled in this week's mystery photo.
Guess What:


Please leave any guesses in the comments.
They will be revealed, along with the answer, next Monday.
No prizes. Just for fun.

Nature's Helicopter

A very close view
 

A bit further away:
 

A bit more .....


Can you tell what it is yet?


This should be easier:


A Sycamore seed:


They start in joined pairs designed to twizzle round in the breeze as they fall from the branch and have a better chance of finding a clear space in which to grow. Unfortunately it is not all fun for horse owners as I see there are warnings again for horse owners to take care where their animals are grazing as these seeds are poisonous.

Friday at the Flicks - Life in a Clump of Algae

When I went to clean out the bird bath I noticed three green mounds in the water.
This was the largest at about 20mm (3/4 inch) across:



I decided it was time to have another microscope session to see what, if any, life forms were living in it. To that end I transferred the largest splodge to a plastic dish:

 

I had hoped to see a few bits of microscopic life but was blown away by their sheer numbers in such a small place as you will see later in the video:

A screen grab from the video. Each life form is less than a tenth of a mm in size.
I think the star shaped objects are Staurastrum:



Another screen grab of a larger life form, about 10mm long and 1mm thick, possibly a midge larva. All the tiny pale specks are the things shown in the first screen grab:



On to the video:




Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you, whatever its size.