Wordless Wednesday

Failed Again

I keep trying to make feeders solely for small birds.
Every time I try something new I am outwitted by:



Yes, those pesky, greedy Starlings:





Though I must admit the low Winter Sunlight did bring out their colouring.

A Pine Cone Treat

I was looking through some of the ideas on the Instructables site when I came across an idea for making a pine cone treat for the birds. There were  few different suggestions which all used peanut butter and added seeds. The only problem I have with that idea is the use of peanut butter made for human consumption. Most varieties will have added salt which is not a good idea for bird feed so I decided to use some of the peanut butter I have which is specially made for birds:



Swings and roundabouts here - peanut butter for humans is reasonably soft and easy to smear but that made for the birds is much harder so the first job was to stand the jar in warm water to soften it up a bit:

   

Next raid my collection of cones to find a nice open one:



Now for the messy job - use a knife to wedge pieces of peanut butter well in the cone and attach a length of string to hang it up:



Finally hang it under my home made log peanut butter feeder and wait to see whether there are any takers.

   

Why a new peanut butter feeder? Hopefully this one will be more difficult for the raiding Starlings to grab everything which is going and let the smaller birds have a chance for a high energy treat in this cold weather.

More about my peanut butter log feeder can be seen HERE.

Saturday Stretcher

I've spent a while thinking (hard work) about a new style of Guess What photos.
In the end I decided on something a bit different.
Objects rotated on a turntable while the camera, this time an iPod running the ScanCamera app, takes many thin strips. As the subject is continually rotating it tends to stretch and add different parts of the object during the few seconds it takes to build up the final photo.

Example, take a battery:




and let ScanCamera do its stuff.
Result:



Here is the first one for you to identify:



If you would like to have a guess then please leave it in the comments. It, along with a photo of the original object, will be revealed next Saturday.

Orchids

The medium size Cymbidium plant is nearly in full flower now:



Inside the new propagator an Oncidium twinkle is blooming:



That Oncidium is a miniature.
Here are both together for comparison:



There are two other miniatures producing buds at this time so more to look forward to along with the two large Cymbidium plants.

Badger Visitor Part 2 - Video

As the stills from the trail camera were time stamped I had a look at my 'security' camera recordings for the same period. Bingo:

Badger in the Garden?

The Floureon trail camera has been set up and running at the back end of the garden for ten days. 411 photos taken, many empty of any visible life, some of the four legged boss:

   

... quite a few of Wood Pigeons and occasionally Blackbirds:



Patiently reviewing all 400+ I spotted just 6 which had something different.
Far from clear but it looks to me as though a Badger has visited:
(At the top of the photo)





I never in my wildest dreams expected to see a badger in my garden
Time to start putting out some piles of peanuts at night to entice it closer to the camera?