Bright Eyed and Bushy Tailed

When I read a short while ago that Ragged Robin had installed a trail camera it reminded me to put a new set of batteries in mine and fix it up again. Going through the few captures it made this week I see that we had a night visitor a couple of times.



Most of the captures are of Penny watering the garden or local cats so it was great to see some real wild life visit. Unfortunately the camera was only set to take still photos. I have now altered the settings so it will take short video clips as well as stills.

A Murky Bedtime

I had changed ready to climb in a nice warm, cosy bed last night. As I opened the curtains and peeked outside I could see it was looking foggy and the Moon had a halo surrounding it. Even though it had turned frosty in what turned out be be freezing fog I put on a coat, grabbed a camera and nipped outside to take a coupe of photos:





It was too cold to clat about with a tripod so those were hand held with the camera resting on some fencing to help steady it a bit.

Little and Large

There have been quite a few bees buzzing round various open flowers plus the occasional bumble bee, often resting in the Sunshine to warm up their wing muscles. The juxtaposition of these two caught my attention:



I think the little mini-beast may be a vine weevil.

Sleepy Wasp and Busy Bee

Today we had a trip out to the vet. It was time for Penny to have her annual vaccine boost. For once she wasn't very keen to get in the car. She used to love the idea of a car ride. I think all the recent months of prodding and testing has made her wary of the real intention of having to get in the car. Also as she ages she finds it harder to leap from ground level to the back seat. The way round that was to move the front passenger seat forward so she can get in the foot well first and then on to the seat.

A couple of days ago I took down a thick wooden shelf from the side of a shed and found this wasp had been sheltering, or possibly hibernating, there:



Today, as the temperature headed up to 17C, I spotted a few bees taking advantage of the warmth and a couple of open Crocus flowers:



I also watched a large bumble bee trying its hardest to fly forwards in a blustery wind.

Nature Waking Up

With the daytime temperature just reaching double figures recently there have been signs of Winter hibernators starting to appear. A couple of days ago I saw a seven spot ladybird wandering across a path in the front garden. Last night this guy was just outside the back door:







A full grown frog though looking very slim after hibernating, possibly under leaf litter or a log pile. I've seen a few slugs in the garden so he / she should soon find a meal or two.

Some Success

I'm still tinkering with the magnetometer. I found the position I had chosen for the detector was far from satisfactory. The unit is temperature sensitive and when the Sun actually shone the readings drifted about. I keep looking for a suitable fully waterproof enclosure so I can put the detector outside, preferable buried. As yet I have not really worked out a suitable place away from metal objects. As a temporary measure I dug out an old plastic box, lined the six sides with 10mm thick dense foam. The rest of the space I filled with lengths of pipe insulation with the detector in the centre, snugly shielded from excessive or rapid changes in temperature.



A possible geomagnetic storm had been forecast for this weekend. It duly started about 8.30 p.m. last night. I soon found I had to re-work some of the Arduino program (sketch they call them) and finally things were looking and behaving much as expected.



This morning the display is showing some large rapid jumps in the readings. I can't work out whether that is something metal moving nearby, the high speed Solar wind still hitting the Earth or the Earth's magnetic field recovering after the storm. I need to see local readings from more geomagnetic storms to gain more experience.

Tidying Up

After three attempts I finally managed to design and 3D print a box to hold the magnetometer display



I didn't like the detector being held in place with a metal clamp. Not the ideal arrangement for something detecting magnetic fields. A bit of delving in the cast off plastic goodies box in the shed revealed a length of plastic tubing. Now fixed in place with the detector inside.



Glancing at the display a short while ago I wondered what had gone wrong to give such a short lived deep spike in the readout.



Faulty solder joint? Faulty programming? I was much relieved when I checked the displays from the Lancaster University on the Aurora Watch site. One of their magnetometer graphs showed a similar downward spike at what appears to be the same time. My set up doesn't show the more minor variations but if it detects the larger ones then I will be satisfied, for now. Ideally the detector should be buried in the ground. That helps with cutting down temperature variations and influences from local magnetic fields which can affect its accurately.