Wonky Wing

A couple of blogs ago, I mentioned Wonky Wing, a blighted juvenile Blackbird that has taken up residence in the our garden.  It doesn't have too much going for it, as it hops around mostly on one leg as one of them appears not to be able to take much weight on it.  It's right wing is set off out to one side at an angle, which may be because of an expanding growth below the wing, that is bald of feathers.

As if that wasn't enough it also has a cough, or what seems like a cough ever few seconds.

However, it is eating well as we put down plenty of food, and it can fly of sorts. But it does seem so vulnerable that I wonder how long it will survive.  It has been around for about three weeks now.  

 Here is an image of it taken last night.

Poor scruffy little thing!!

It is not phased by me and is quite happy to be very close, an came about two feet away from me while I was photographing a Southern Hawker dragonfly last night.

I will keep my fingers crossed for it, and keep feeding it while it remains alive.

Martin

A Bugs life 2

I have been watching some Paper wasps (polistes annularis) busily making their nest just outside my front door for the last few weeks. We have a company come around every few weeks to clear any bugs away and so i thought that it would be a good time to get the camera out and take a few shots before they would be exterminated, I am quite happy for them to be around but as the house is sold and there will be an inspection soon they will have to go, I put up a set of steps to gain some height and be closer to them and as i raised my camera-Nikon D3s and Sigma 150mm macro they turned and faced me, One of them hanging off the nest to get a better look at the stranger slightly below, This with the shallow depth of field gave a 3D view through the view finder and i was very unsure if there they would attack, After a couple of minutes of a stand off they carried on with their work, I used a SB900 set to -2.7 to give a slight pop of flash

 Very heavy crop of the above image-not too bad considering its ISO1600

Dave

Swifts not doing so well

Regular readers will know of the great pleasure I get from a lovely little bird that spends only about three short months with us here in the UK and that is of course, the Swift.

It seems that there are some sad tales associated with this, among many other bird species.

The RSPB is keen to hear from you if you have Swifts near you, as they have suffered about a 30% population drop over the recent past and  unbelievably are on the Amber list.

Full story can be found here and the link to the RSPB Swift site here.  Please do let them know as all data they receive is useful, even if only to say that you used to see them but don't know.

I was off work on leave yesterday, working in the garden, and certainly enjoyed stopping to watch them overhead from time to time.

Martin

Funky Remote

As both Martin and myself have mentioned before we are both big fans of Capture One software, They now have an App where you can take control of your camera by using an iphone or an ipad, There are millions of apps available for all kinds of things but this actually looks like a good one
See HERE
And HERE
If you are curious about Capture one or any of the phase One products just go to you tube and enter their name and lots of videos and tutorials come up-excellent product-Highly Recommended


Dave

A Bugs Life

Its been hot hot hot here in NC and also very humid, This normally means that the bugs come out in force, But not all bugs are bad and a pain, We have a huge variety of exotic looking bugs of all shapes and sizes, Last year i cut an orange in half and impaled it on a metal pole to try and attract some birds but all it seemed to attract was bugs and in particular the leaf footed bug ( Leptoglossus fulvicornis) which you can by looking at it where it got its name from, I have my D7000 with Sigma 150mm macro permanently set up at the moment so if i do see an interesting bug i can quickly grab a shot, This one landed on my garden table yesterday evening and although was a bit skittish as long as i moved slowly it was calm, I started to shoot with F8 but when focusing on the eye the body was completely out of focus, When shooting macro close up you are talking about DOF in millimeters, F11 helped a bit and thats what you see here, I think at some point i will have to invest in some photo stacking software

Dave

Sunday Quickie

Well it rained on Friday - St. Swithuns day and has continued to do so over the weekend, which is unfortunately coincidental with the start of the Big Butterfly Count that I mentioned earlier in the week.  So I shall hang on until it is warm and dry here and the butterflies can be tempted out to fly.  We have until the end of the month yet.

In the garden the wet weather has got the little froglets jumping around.  I haven't seen too many so far yet this year, which is surprising given the record number of tadpoles we had this year.

But in a similar image to Dave's from earlier in the week, here is one of them, but fully developed in that it's tail has disappeared now.

Although, it still seems to have that fat black middle section of the body of the tadpole, but the topsides are now the right colour.

Elsewhere in the garden, we are inundated with juvenile birds on the feeders from a range of tits, house and hedge sparrows, starlings and notably goldfinches, which look strange without their signature red and gold flashes

One of the young blackbirds has a bit of a problem in that it has a wonky wing, a bald patch under it, a gammy leg and seems to have a persistent sort of cough.  Other that that it is fine and is eating well.  I do worry about its chances with a few cat predators that come in to the garden, plus the ever present sparrowhawk that seems to prefer the larger birds.

The downsides of the bad weather is the cost of wife orchestrated trips to garden centres and a list of those 5 minute jobs.  Guys - there are never any five minute jobs - but I guess you already knew that.

They always take at least an hour, and involve pain at some stage, even if it is when you are just trying to find the bloody tools.

Right better go and tick off some more more chores.

Martin

Cyberpower PC

Finally its arrived, The new high spec/high tech PC from Cyberpowerpc, First impressions when i opened the box was that the packing was minimal, There was just some foam top and bottom and that was it, Upon opening the PC box and taking off the PC side they had put some packing in the PC compartment to stop things bouncing around in transit, I would have liked to see more protection around the main box but saying that it all arrived in good condition, The PC is huge compared to my old Dell, Its a full size gaming PC with lots of fans all round to keep things nice and cool, I quickly set it up and it booted up very quickly and silently, So far i have just put my mail, firefox and breezebrowser, Over the weekend i will add Capture one and Photoshop and try them all out together and see how it handles it, My old PC would bog down weh everything was open, This now should not happen, Being a guy i like my gadgets and this is one awesome gadget, Something that should last for years and allow me to add and grow as new technologies come out

Dave

New phone = new apps

Recently I asked if any of you had any favourite apps that you use on your smartphones. Well I changed out my phone a couple days ago for a Samsung Galaxy S2, which I understand is a rare beast in the States at the moment but coming through in good numbers here in the UK. Makes a change for us on this side of the water.
Anyway as part of the setting up process I have found a cracking app called Photo tools. It is aimed at the serious photographer and brings together a mass of tools all in one app.
With something like 30 tools there are too many to go through here but they cover the DOF and hyperfocal stuff that I mentioned recently along with flash and exposure calculators. I particularly like the blue and golden hour tool that will tell you sunrise sunset, dusk and twilight times based on date and your location.
Another good tool links to calculating exposure times with ND filters. Now for low stops it is simple to just let the ttl metering take care of it but if you read our articles on the 10 stop filters you will know that composituon and exposure calculation can be a little tricky. Now it wont solve the composition problems but it will help when you run out fingers as you keep doubling ever increasing numbers of seconds as you mentally calculate the exposure time.
So if you are an Androidist get into the Market and download it.
There is one other great app that we dont have yet but you Applists do.
The Photographers Ephemeris which I have blogged about before is available as an iOS app. This tool also gives sunrise and sunset times but the best extra is the compass angles when set on the map. A perfect tool when planning your landscapes.
The good news is that is will be coming to Android soon.
Martin