Springing Into Life

Not a lot different to report on the Great Tit front. Mrs GT is still adding to the nest from time to time and spending her nights roosting in the camera nestbox.

Elsewhere there are signs we are heading towards milder weather. Every time the Sun comes out there are plenty of Small Tortoiseshell Butterflies about. This one landed on the road surface and obliging waited while I got in close for a photo:



In spite of the cool weather recently there are signs that the frog spawn is starting to develop. About half of it has started to change from a black dot to the beginnings of a tadpole:



Last night saw the first video capture this year of a visiting Hedgehog:



Sorry about the flickering line at the bottom. It's a problem with the recorder. I used to be able to cover it over but haven't found out how to do that on the mac as yet.

Nearly Finished

Another busy day for Mrs GT on Wednesday:

An early start:



The rest of the day speeded up:



Mrs GT is much closer to the camera as she is sleeping on the edge of the nest.



She will move to the middle when she starts laying.

Nest Building This Morning

In real time for once:



Mrs GT works hard in bursts every so often.

Another Busy Day Nest Building

Speeded up again:




Stop Press:
Caught sight of our first spiky visitor for this year.
Unfortunately I was too slow to capture the Hedgehog on video.

Nest Building Starts

Sunday afternoon saw a flurry of activity in the camera nest box.
Mrs Great Tit can be seen here, speeded up:



Unfortunately a local thunderstorm arrived and heavy rain stopped play but at least she has made a good start. Not at all bad for just over 20 minutes hard work.

In spite of this morning dawning cold and frosty Mrs GT started bright and early fetching more moss to continue with the nest building.

Spring on Hold

The bit of warm weather was short lived. Plenty of gusty cold wind and temperature back to single figures for much of the time. That didn't stop the frogs which continued to produce their spawn:



It looks as though there are about sixteen lots in the garden pond. This should continue to develop when the temperature starts to rise again.

When I was checking through the video clips I took of the newt attacking the first batch of frog spawn I could see there were two of them. A male and a female:



The male with his light coloured belly with black spots can just be see towards the top right of the clip which I have slowed down.

Popped Primula

Unlike other apps I have used for colour popping, iSplashColors for the mac gives three choices for the background - greyscale, sepia and the cyan tones I used this time. Vignetting can also be added. There is some control over the saturation of the colours.