The Reds Have Made It

A reminder that in 2018 I had a bare stump after a very learge Leylandi had been felled and I planted a couple of Virginia Creeper plants hoping for a colourful display in the future.



Last October it looked like this:



Last week I took this photo:



Lovely Autumn colours. Not only covering the whole stump but trying to take over the surrounding fence panels as well.

Then There Were Two

About a week ago the camera covering the bird feeders recorded some night visits from a very unwelcome visitor. The sort with brown fur and a very long tail. Fascinating watching the ease with which a rat can climb up a vertical post. Needless to say I then started to put the feeders away each night and provide Mr Ratty with his own special food safely positioned under a shed. After a few days I could see it had taken the bait and I disposed of one ex rat. Hopefully things are back to normal now.

On the more welcome front I see there are now two Magpies visiting the feeders. They are not very tolerant of other birds trying to feed at the same time. At about 3min 15sec in you can see how one deals with a Wood Pigeon.



Most of the bird sounds seem to be coming from Starlings who are not happy at having to wait their turn.

Callistemon Seed Pods

Haven't been on here much recently. Firstly the Hospital has been catching up on Consultant outpatient appointments so I had three visits in ten days. They seem satisfied with my progress and the next appointment should be in about four months time. Secondly I've been making amateur radio contacts around the world on the HF bands as conditions seem to be excellent. So good my low power, simple set up managed to make contact with four Japanese radio hams this morning. Not something I can usually manage.

My Callistemon (bottle brush plant) produced another good display of its unusual red flowers. In the Summer they looked like this:



Once the flowers have faded the seed pods can be seen:



I thought this would make an interesting subject for a focus stacked closer view:



That was a stack of 20 photos taken using my home built automated unit. The following photo was taken some time ago:



Once the photos had been transferred to the laptop they were processed with Helicon Focus which used the sharp, in focus, parts of each photo and combined those bits to buid the final macro photo.

Magpie Visitor

This Magpie visits the bird feeders from time to time.



It always has the food to itself as all the smaller birds stay away until it has flown away.

South Thoresby Warren Revisited

In 2009 I explored the newly opened nature reserve known as South Thoresby Warren. The reserve was originally a field which over the years became a sand pit, then a landfill site and finally an established nature reserve. I had been meaning for a long time to revisit to see what it is like now. Yesterday I got round to making the sort 11 mile trip to have a look.



This photo was taken in 2009



Yesterday this is now the view



Lots of brambles and teasels. Last time the only visitors were myself and Bobby, the lurcher companion I had then. This time I met a couple walking with their two dogs. We had a short chat while I made a fuss of their dogs and they, the dogs, did their best to encircle me with their long leads. They seemed to be regular users of the reserve and explained it was not looking at it best this year. Most of the land in on a rise and is suffering from lack of rain. Normally there is an abundance of fruit on the brambles but not a single one now.

I did spot a couple of small tortoiseshell butterflies



The plentiful supply of teasels should attract various finches



The rough hard ground made for slow walking and as my hip joint was complaining I left the wooded area for exploration on a future visit.



I had taken the main A road to get there but decided to use the country lanes on the way home. A much more relaxing driving experience.

Spotting the Spots

As the sky was pretty well clear of clouds yesterday I thought it a good opportunity to photograph the Sun. I tried at midday as that meant I would be looking through the least amount of the Earth's atmosphere to give the clearest possible photo. Unfortunately that meant the Sun was very high in the sky and I couldn't get a proper view through the camera viewfinder with the camera pointing up at such a steep angle. I tried again at 3 p.m. and this time managed to line the camera up without too much difficulty. When visiting the excellent SpaceWeather web site I noticed there were several Sunspots showing. How many would my simple equipment capture?



All of them, well, all the major parts of each visible Sunspot. Sunspots are numbered consecutively as they are observed. They are give an AR number. (AR = Active Region)



Some regions start small and then peter out so it is possible that there can be gaps in AR numbers of those in view at any one time. Even with a 400mm telephoto lens the Sun takes up a small section of a photograph so the above are cropped sections. The most important safety feature used when directly observing the Sun is the use of a Solar filter which is designed to cut the brilliance down to a safe level.

Hot and Hotter

Yesterday turned out to be as hot, if not more so, than forecast. My weather station temperature records peaking at 27.8C:



By taking short working sessions with cooling off periods in between I manage to treat most of the front of the workshop. As that area was facing South I can vouch that it was ****** hot working there but the job needed doing.



That is also a view of my new bird feeding area. The birds were taking good advantage of the water avilable.

Today the air temperature peaked at 29.1C so I didn't spend much time outdoors. What I did do was to take some photos using the Seek Thermal camera which plugs in the iPhone. Here are some composite photos (screen shots to be exact) showing how various areas and items look to the human eye and what temperatures they have reached in full Sun.







I found it interesting to see which things / materials were hotter than others. Thermal colours range from black for the coolest areas of any photo, through blue, green, orange and red. White is for the hottest areas of each thermal photo.