Tree Sparrow and Baby

I have become used to Tree Sparrows joining the House Sparrows during the Winter and I had noticed the odd one about for a few weeks recently. It came as quite a surprise when one turned up with a youngster:







The silent section of this video was taken with the 50D and the rest with the Hitachi DVD Cam:

First Damsel of the Season

I was throwing some weeds in the green wheelie bin when I saw something flitting across the corner of my eye. To my surprise it was a damselfly which landed on a nearby length of old branch which was propped up against the fence. A good job the Nikon is usually in my shirt pocket just in case something interesting pops into view. It wasn't at all bothered as I gradually got the lens closer and closer.



As far as I can tell it is one of several forms of female Blue-tailed Damselfly, maybe infuscans.

Macro on Monday - Guess What

Ragged Robin was the only person to definitely go for Millipede last week and receives my congratulations and the virtual Gold Star.










I wonder how you will get on this with this week's macro.
Guess What:



Clue: You don't pin this one on a donkey.

Put your guess in the comments and all will be revealed next Monday.
No prizes, just for fun.


Great Tits

Both parents continue to collect food for their fledglings.
Here both were taking sunflower hearts from the three quarter coconut which is very popular with many of the smaller birds:

 

The Robin and the Suet Ball

If there are no easy seeds to find this Robin has found it can hang on to the suet ball feeder:







When the legs get tired of hanging on - find a handy perch and reach across:

 

It's Been a RAW Day

In more ways than one. Woke up and got out of bed about 5 a.m. to wall to wall sunshine which was promising for a good day. By the time we went walkabout soon after 7 a.m. thick cloud was rolling in from the North Sea and temperatures struggled to reach 12C. It ended up as a morning to try shooting in RAW for the first time, but looking through the kitchen window. Shooting through two layers of glass does nothing to help gain sharp photos but at least RAW files seemed to have better colour definition: (all cropped and processed in Photoshop Elements 10)

Female  Chaffinch
 


Uh oh, I think I'd better move:
 

 Greenfinches:
 

Male Blackbird with a full beak:
 

Blackbird - juvenile


Another experiment - video shot in 640x480 with the 50D and then digitally zoomed in AVS Video Editor software:



Hope you are having better wildlife watching weather than we have here.

Friday at the Flicks - Great Tit Babies Visit the Garden

Yesterday I crossed my fingers, held my breath and installed Magic Lantern software on the Canon 50D. One of the things this adds is the ability to shoot silent video. I'll make a more detailed comment about the ML software abilities another day.

This is the first video I took this morning of one of the Great Tit adults on the peanut feeder. Even with a 400mm lens it doesn't get as close in as my camcorders. This one was shot in wide screen:



A little later I decided to try the 640x480 aspect ration and was lucky that at least two of the baby Great Tits decided to make an appearance:



Nice to see at least two of them are learning where the free food is while the parents continue to search for food.

To Bee or Not to Bee

Sorry folks - couldn't resist that. The thing is have I snapped a bee or a wasp? Looking round the net there are two choices and unfortunately they both look identical to this subject.

I was wandering in the grounds of the Wagon and Horses waiting for my lunch companion to arrive so decided to idle the time photographing some of the flowers when I spotted a few flying insects. At first I thought they were some sort of hover fly and then decided they were wasps. Long, thin with long legs hanging while in flight. Very shy as most often they flew away when I tried to get the Nikon close up. The ground in that area was dotted with small round holes. These are all clues to help identify this beasty:



It does look very much like a paper wasp I found on the net - but - it is also the spitting image of Nomada goodeniana - a true bee which lays its eggs in the nest of Andrena ground nesting bees. See A Nature Observer's Scrapbook, third bee down. One thing I am sure of - I have never seen any of these at home or around our village, not yet anyway.

A further trawl through the net has convinced me it is a Nomada bee. They can be found over much of England though most seem to be spotted in the South and many in the East Midlands ( my part of the country).