Friday at the Flicks - First Bumble Bee of Spring

As I was fixing my garden clock back in place after its Winter change of battery, de-cobwebbing and rest I spied a Bumble Bee in the planter just below:



It can't have woken for long as it looked clean and pristine while it warmed up in the Sunshine. Only 10C outside but felt pleasantly warm with no cold wind for once.

Whose Beak Was This?

Walking down the lane we both spotted a couple of bright yellow objects near a scatter of feathers:



Penny stopped to have a good sniff and I got the camera out:





My best guess is Blackbird as I often see them near that spot.

Wordless Wednesday

Louth Navigation Canal

Next Arduino Project

For a long time I've wanted to make a long term time lapse video. Yesterday I saw a project on the Instructables site which inspired me to get started. That project was designed for a Raspberry Pi to control lighting and the camera. My version will use an Arduino Nano as I had one in the junk box and I find them easier for my remaining grey cell to cope with the programming.

The basic set up is simple.
The Arduino (on the right) doing the timing to control two relays (on the left):



One relay will switch some 12V LEDs on for each shot.
The other will fire the camera, in this case an old Canon 350D.

The sketch (instructions for the Arduino) is simple:



This has a fixed delay time of 15 minutes though any other could be used by changing the value for waitTime (in seconds).
Normally I wouldn't use 'delay()' for such long periods as the Arduino can do nothing else during this time but that is exactly what is needed in this case. I tested the timing with a stop watch and it was within a second over the 15 minute wait.

The camera and Arduino will have to be powered from the mains as they could well be running for many days,  possibly weeks, depending on the subject I choose.

I am also toying with the idea of writing a sketch where the delay time can be set on starting the program and displaying it on a small display.

Monday Mystery - Guess What

Some puzzlement over last week's mystery photo but my congratulations and a virtual Midmarsh Gold Star go to Adrian and Ragged Robin who both recognised the knife sharpener. A knife blade is drawn back and forth in the V where the serrated edges sharpen the blade:

   

This week we have a close view of part of an everyday object.
Guess What:


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.

Foggy Sunrise

Woke up to freezing fog this morning. Visibility at less than 100m and the air temperature 0C. On the return from our early morning perambulation the only colour was a faint halo round the Sun:

Life among the Kangaroo Paws

Kangaroo Paws in this case is the Australian plant Anigozanthos. This is regarded as a tender plant in the UK so I brought mine indoors for the Winter. It has spent its time in the unheated conservatory where temperatures probably got down to about 4C some nights. Although it is said to be a Summer flowering plant it kept one flower stem going all through the Winter and is producing two new ones already this year:



This isn't the life referred to in the title though.
I had spotted a small snail shell on one of the leaves.....



... which I decided would make a suitable subject for some focus stacked close shots:





Later when I took the 'normal shot' (2nd photo down) I spotted something else next to the shell. I set up the macro camera again and was staggered to observe the smallest slug I have ever seen:





Those were rather hurried single shots taken just before I knocked them both off the table. After a scrabble around I found the snail shell which I discovered to be empty but as for the slug ... it's still on the loose somewhere.