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.

Lost and Found

A short while ago I found the weather satellite receiver I built from a kit many years ago. At the time I thought it wouldn't be of any use as it didn't seem to cover the radio frequencies used by the latest satellites. A couple of days ago while searching for information for something else on the laptop I found the instructions for the receiver. It can receive all the current polar orbiting weather satellites. Then I went looking for the receiver. Can I find it? Nowhere to be seen at the moment!

What I did find was my kit built magnetometer which I decided to get working again. As I mentioned above, the information I had been searching for was for this receiver. Could I find it? Not a sausage. Anyway I connected it all up with the actual detector fixed high up in the conservatory and aligned East West. I have always been disappointed with the readout being a meter as there is no record of what changes there may have been in the Earth's magnetic field, especially after the Sun has released any charged particles in our direction.







I wondered whether I could use an Arduino with one of my 3.5 inch TFT displays to show some sort of graph of the changes. I had build one for displaying temperature and air pressure some time ago. Aha. I could probably use some of that code. Once again I went searching through files on the laptop and back up drives. You guessed it. Not found. So starting again from scratch was the only way forward. I linked the voltage output to the meter on the magnetometer display to an Arduino Mega fitted with a 3.5 inch display. Lots of typing code, testing and use of Adrian's favoured naughty words I managed to create a scrolling display. Only time will tell how useful, effective or interesting the result will be.





Next project will be to 3D print a housing for the display as it's now just a Heath Robinson layout while in the testing stage. Not a great deal of activity so far today. Just the normal minor variations if the Earth's magnetic field being displayed on the graph.

Brrrrr

First thing yesterday morning saw the temperature dropping to -3.6C



During the day it almost reached +3C with a slightly hazy sky and lots of Sunlight.



At least that meant no more snow but where many footpaths had been clear the day before, snow showers the previous evening gave them a covering again. That soon turned to ice as the snow was compressed by pedestrians. I'm getting good value from the ice spikes this year.

On our morning walkies we had a look down a track between fields



Standing in one field entrance I took a panoramic view looking towards the Lincolnshire Wolds



The 287 feet high tower and steeple of St. James,Louth parish church, was easily visible poking up. (a closer crop of the above photo) I've not seen it so clearly on a photo taken from 6Km (3.7 miles) away.



On the return journey the Winter Sun was casting long shadows



Back home and a quick look at the raised pond complete with alligator and rabbit.



Yes. Frozen over as expected. Looking forward to Monday when temperatures are forecast to rise again. Last night they dipped down to -7.1C. All photos taken with a Canon G5X Mkii.