Friday at the Flicks - More Nesting Material

This is not the first time I have seen a Blackbird gather wet material for nest building:



Have a grand weekend observing the wildlife around you.

Keeping Warm

One sunny but cold afternoon about a week ago we went walkabout past the paddock to see whether any horses were out and about.

Down a narrow path to the back of the village church:



Across the back of the graveyard:



Along another narrow track:



Finally a view of the horses well wrapped up enjoying fresh air and sunshine on the far side of the paddock:










On our way back home we were being closely watched by the occasional goat:

Misty Sunrise

It seems more like Autumn this week with misty mornings and evening fog. No chance of seeing a possible aurora last night with fog and low cloud. I hope others had better luck as there was a strong geomagnetic storm after two CMEs had hit the Earth's magnetic field. I did see reports that short wave transmission activity had all but disappeared during the electrical storm.

This photo of the Sun was taken Tuesday morning well after it had risen:

 

Microscopic Pond Life - A Closer Look

From time to time I try different video cameras to find the best microscope / camera combination. All the cameras show some aberrations at low lighting levels. Can't quite make my mind up whether this is on the IR filter which they all have or some aspect of the sensor which only shows at low light levels.

This experiment was with a Siemens camera which is good quality but unfortunately shows a lot of aberrations. I have tried different high magnifications object lenses and that makes no difference. 

This time I managed to obtain some closer views of the life in a bit of algae taken from the pond waterfall:



Once again I haven't managed to identify the various forms of life.

Macro on Monday - Guess What

Unfortunately no virtual Midmarsh Stars this week as everyone was stumped by last week's close shot of a roll of electrical insulation tape:

   

Maybe you will have better luck with the new mystery photo which is a cropped slice:
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.

Running even later than usual tonight. Spent hours trying to find out why I was seeing various spurious 'shapes' from the video cameras I have been trying on the microscope. At first I thought is was some dirt somewhere in the optics associated with the bottom lighting system. I cleaned everything up as best I could but it made no difference. They only show at high magnification but it wasn't the objective lenses. In the end I came to the conclusion it was some aberration in the cameras at the low lighting levels caused by the tiny openings used on high magnification lenses.

Also I am a woodpecker typist - only using two fingers on each hand. Unfortunately I managed to stab the end of one finger on my freezer knife which has two saw like edges. So one hand has to be careful not to put pressure on that finger as it starts bleeding again and that is slowing things down somewhat.

Nesting Time

For a couple of days the female Blackbirds have been gathering nesting material early in the mornings:







Unfortunately so far this year I haven't spotted any activity in either of the camera nest boxes.

Song Thrush Sings

I have heard a Song Thrush singing very close on several occasions but it usually remains well hidden from sight. Finally, yesterday I spotted it high up in one of next doors apple trees but still out of clear sight:



Fortunately it would move its position from time to time and eventually it was in the clear for a decent shot:




The Song Thrush even stayed long enough to catch a video clip of it deafening me: