Friday was more than a bit breezy all day. Sunday promises to be wet all day so today (Sunny but with a cold breeze) looked the ideal time to observe and count the birds visiting my garden for an hour. The results were prettty much what I would have expected except the number of Starlings and House Sparrows was low as they spent much time in the nearby bushes and only made occasional raids on the feeders. One nice surprise was the Long Tailed Tits. I had spotted them a couple of days ago and lo and behold a few decided to visit during the count.
Final count results:
4 House Sparrows
3 Long Tailed Tits
3 Blackbirds
3 Wood Pigeons
2 Dunnocks
2 Blue Tits
2 Starlings
1 Great tit
1 Robin
1 Chaffinch
1 Collared Dove
One real surprise occurred at breakfast time when I saw a female Blackbird obviously collecting nesting material.
Unfortunately the RSPB will have to do without my results as their web site is useless. Tried to log in with my details which have worked for years but they weren't recognised and I have no patience with companies which chop and change and mess things up.
Writing of companies which mess things up. Read that Lincolnshire County Council computers were hit with ransomware during the week. A cool £1,000,000 asked for the compromised data to be unscrambled. All because someone appears to have been careless about taking care before clicking on an attachment in an email. Fortunately the attacking virus was noticed and the systems shut down before too much damage was done. They are not paying, hoping to clean the system and then restore from recent backups. It's taking a while as most of their services have been offline for several days.
Sunday: It is now stated that the demand made to LCC was only $500 not the £1M first reported. They hope to have most of their systems up and running again tomorrow, Monday.
Saturday, 30 January 2016
Friday, 29 January 2016
New Arduino Project
Today there should have been a nice video of a Blackbird enjoying some apple pieces I had put out but on reviewing the footage today I found the camera had focussed on the background instead of the bird.
Long time readers may remember I built a rain gauge around an Arduino Mega with a digital read out. That has proved to be very reliable so I have decoded to expand on its capabilities. This time instead of using a four line LED display which can only be read from a close distance I intend to rebuild the unit using an Arduino Uno this time and the display will be 10mm tall individual seven segment displays. That has meant learning some new coding to access the display. I bought an eight digit seven segment display which has a MAX7219 chip on board which needs only five wires to access it.
Not only will the display show rainfall but also temperature and humidity. The idea being to use four of the LEDs to show temperature and the other four to show the humidity. Also I have ordered a further two digit seven segment display to show the rainfall.
So far I have got as far as uploading a test routine to make sure I can access all the digits and the decimal points. The latter took me longer to understand the instructions I found on the internet. This is a short video of the test display:
For those who may be interested this is the sketch (program) which is uploaded to the Arduino.
It is my modification of one I found on the internet::
//We always have to include the library
#include "LedControl.h"
/*
Now we need a LedControl to work with.
***** These pin numbers are used on my Uno R3 *****
pin 12 is connected to the DataIn
pin 11 is connected to the CLK
pin 10 is connected to LOAD
We have only a single MAX72XX.
*/
LedControl lc=LedControl(12,11,10,1);
/* wait a bit between updates of the display */
unsigned long delaytime=350;
void setup() {
/*
The MAX72XX is in power-saving mode on startup,
we have to do a wakeup call
*/
lc.shutdown(0,false);
/* Set the brightness to a low value */
lc.setIntensity(0,2);
/* and clear the display */
lc.clearDisplay(0);
}
/*
This will display the characters for the
word "Arduino" one after the other.
*/
void writeArduinoOn7Segment() {
lc.setChar(0,7,'a',false);
delay(delaytime);
lc.setRow(0,6,0x05);
delay(delaytime);
lc.setChar(0,5,'d',false);
delay(delaytime);
lc.setRow(0,4,0x1c);
delay(delaytime);
lc.setRow(0,3,B00010000);
delay(delaytime);
lc.setRow(0,2,0x15);
delay(delaytime);
lc.setRow(0,1,0x1D);
delay(delaytime);
// lc.clearDisplay(0);
delay(delaytime);
}
/*
This will scroll all the decimal numbers
and flash the decimal point on LED 0.
*/
void scrollDigits() {
for(int i=0;i<10 br="" i=""> lc.setDigit(0,0,i,false);
delay(delaytime);
lc.setDigit(0,0,i,'dp');
delay(delaytime);
}
delay(delaytime);
lc.clearDisplay(0);
delay(delaytime);
}
void loop() {
writeArduinoOn7Segment();
delay(delaytime);
scrollDigits();
}
Long time readers may remember I built a rain gauge around an Arduino Mega with a digital read out. That has proved to be very reliable so I have decoded to expand on its capabilities. This time instead of using a four line LED display which can only be read from a close distance I intend to rebuild the unit using an Arduino Uno this time and the display will be 10mm tall individual seven segment displays. That has meant learning some new coding to access the display. I bought an eight digit seven segment display which has a MAX7219 chip on board which needs only five wires to access it.
Not only will the display show rainfall but also temperature and humidity. The idea being to use four of the LEDs to show temperature and the other four to show the humidity. Also I have ordered a further two digit seven segment display to show the rainfall.
So far I have got as far as uploading a test routine to make sure I can access all the digits and the decimal points. The latter took me longer to understand the instructions I found on the internet. This is a short video of the test display:
For those who may be interested this is the sketch (program) which is uploaded to the Arduino.
It is my modification of one I found on the internet::
//We always have to include the library
#include "LedControl.h"
/*
Now we need a LedControl to work with.
***** These pin numbers are used on my Uno R3 *****
pin 12 is connected to the DataIn
pin 11 is connected to the CLK
pin 10 is connected to LOAD
We have only a single MAX72XX.
*/
LedControl lc=LedControl(12,11,10,1);
/* wait a bit between updates of the display */
unsigned long delaytime=350;
void setup() {
/*
The MAX72XX is in power-saving mode on startup,
we have to do a wakeup call
*/
lc.shutdown(0,false);
/* Set the brightness to a low value */
lc.setIntensity(0,2);
/* and clear the display */
lc.clearDisplay(0);
}
/*
This will display the characters for the
word "Arduino" one after the other.
*/
void writeArduinoOn7Segment() {
lc.setChar(0,7,'a',false);
delay(delaytime);
lc.setRow(0,6,0x05);
delay(delaytime);
lc.setChar(0,5,'d',false);
delay(delaytime);
lc.setRow(0,4,0x1c);
delay(delaytime);
lc.setRow(0,3,B00010000);
delay(delaytime);
lc.setRow(0,2,0x15);
delay(delaytime);
lc.setRow(0,1,0x1D);
delay(delaytime);
// lc.clearDisplay(0);
delay(delaytime);
}
/*
This will scroll all the decimal numbers
and flash the decimal point on LED 0.
*/
void scrollDigits() {
for(int i=0;i<10 br="" i=""> lc.setDigit(0,0,i,false);
delay(delaytime);
lc.setDigit(0,0,i,'dp');
delay(delaytime);
}
delay(delaytime);
lc.clearDisplay(0);
delay(delaytime);
}
void loop() {
writeArduinoOn7Segment();
delay(delaytime);
scrollDigits();
}
Wednesday, 27 January 2016
Monday, 25 January 2016
Monday Mystery - Guess What
A good start to the new season of mystery photos with Ragged Robin, Adrian and Wilma correctly identifying the photo as a close view of a potato / vegetable peeler. They receive my congratulations and the virtual Midmarsh Gold Star.
This peeler has been in the family for a very long time, well over 40 years:
This week's mystery is a bit different.
Here you have a full view but what are the pieces of old branches for?
Guess What:
Just to dispel any doubts it is not my entry for the next Tate Modern exhibition.
Please leave any guesses in the comments.
They will be revealed, along with the answer, next Monday.
No prizes, just for fun and maybe a virtual Midmarsh Gold or Silver Star.
Saturday, 23 January 2016
The Idiot Lantern
Until recently I could go several days without switching on the idiot lantern preferring to listen to the radio. That was until three new free to air channels arrived on Freesat. Two of them, Drama and Yesterday, I find interesting as they broadcast some of the types of television programmes I like to watch - comedy and documentary. It's been great to watch some of the old Open All Hours and Last of the Summer Wine along with nature and history documentaries. As these channels are funded by advertising I record the items which interest me. I don't object to advertising as such but find modern ads so silly, nay stupid and annoying, they put me off more products than attract me.
Last night I watched a programme which was broadcast on BBC Channel 4. For once it kept my attention as I usually find I nod off during long programmes. I have never seen a circus live and found it fascinating watching The Golden Age of Circus. Seventy five minutes of old silent film some of which looked as though it dated back to the late 20s or early 30s. The beauty was there was no soporific voice over, just music. There was a warning before the film that some people might be upset by some of the subjects. This probably alluded to the section which showed many of the performances involving animals. I must admit I skipped a few of those parts myself. While the dogs playing football with a balloon seemed to be having the time of their lives acts like the seven performing Polar Bears and some of the wild cats and monkeys didn't look so contented.
Actually there was more to it than just the traditional circus. Included was some rodeo, high wire acts between skyscrapers or across ravines and outdoor escapologist acts. It seemed to start with some amusing stage acts so I guess it was showing the development of travelling entertainment.
The last five minutes or so concentrated on the audience reactions. I wonder how often young children in the age of XBoxes and Nintendos show such expressions and emotions of wonder, amazement and pure joy or even what opportunities they get to experience such feelings.
Having bored you silly here are a couple of photos of this morniing's Sunrise:
Last night I watched a programme which was broadcast on BBC Channel 4. For once it kept my attention as I usually find I nod off during long programmes. I have never seen a circus live and found it fascinating watching The Golden Age of Circus. Seventy five minutes of old silent film some of which looked as though it dated back to the late 20s or early 30s. The beauty was there was no soporific voice over, just music. There was a warning before the film that some people might be upset by some of the subjects. This probably alluded to the section which showed many of the performances involving animals. I must admit I skipped a few of those parts myself. While the dogs playing football with a balloon seemed to be having the time of their lives acts like the seven performing Polar Bears and some of the wild cats and monkeys didn't look so contented.
Actually there was more to it than just the traditional circus. Included was some rodeo, high wire acts between skyscrapers or across ravines and outdoor escapologist acts. It seemed to start with some amusing stage acts so I guess it was showing the development of travelling entertainment.
The last five minutes or so concentrated on the audience reactions. I wonder how often young children in the age of XBoxes and Nintendos show such expressions and emotions of wonder, amazement and pure joy or even what opportunities they get to experience such feelings.
Having bored you silly here are a couple of photos of this morniing's Sunrise:
Friday, 22 January 2016
Sunset
On a few occasions a colourful Sunset appears on the 'wrong' side of the sky. Tonight was one such where the colours were towards the ESE. The direction I am normally photographing Sunrises:
As usual it lasted a very brief period and there was no colour, apart from blue, towards the West. It made a nice ending to what had been a fairly grotty day with strong wind and endless rain through the middle of the day.
Wednesday, 20 January 2016
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