Getting used to an SLR

Over the last few months, I've been getting used to my new DSLR camera, and its been great fun. Just this week, I thought I would take some photos and video footage of various plants around our garden. I have just bought a 75-300mm lens, but I haven't really used it much yet, so I thought I would first share with you some of the stuff I have managed to capture with my 18-55mm kit lens.

One of the many reasons why I wanted the camera I now own, is because it is capable of capturing full HD video. This means that I won't have to buy a separate video camera. I have been experimenting with the video function for a while now, and I thought I would just share a few videos I have taken over the last few weeks. They aren't that great, but I'm still learning how to get decent footage.

I've found that the most practical size to capture the video is 720p, rather than 1080p, mostly because the file sizes are more manageable and also because most computers are unable to play 1080p video smoothly. Besides, on a small video player on my blog, the difference in quality between the two dimensions is pretty much unnoticeable.

The Alliums which have been growing near our bird feeders, have just finished flowering, but the video below shows one of the flowers a couple of weeks ago. As you can see, these flowers really attracted the bees...



Elsewhere in the garden, other flowers which we planted earlier in the year have also just finished flowering. We have had large areas of wild flowers towards the end of the garden (which we planted). Instead of showing you videos of these, I thought I'd show you some of the flowers from plants we didn't grow- basically, they're weeds...



And there's more...



When I had run out of flowers to video, I decided to get a quick video of the reflections on the bird bath...



Thats all for now, i'll probably post again either tonight or tomorrow with some more video footage. Anyway, enjoy any sunshine you get today, cause its looking pretty grey here at the moment!

Back soon

I know, its been a long time. A very long time. But, I will be back to posting regularly in a couple of weeks. Basically, being a year 11 student doesn't come without its problems. I've had loads of revision/coursework over the last few months. Although, to be honest, I will admit that, once I had left the blog for a while, I lost a little bit of motivation to post again. But, I WILL be back in a couple of weeks when my exams are finished, promise!

I have been keeping up with your blogs over the last months though, and WOW, its been interesting to see how spring has unfolded in various parts of the country. I'm sorry I haven't left any comments recently either, but again, I'll get back to that soon.

A lot has happened over the last few months in our garden. And it has been a shame not to be able to share it. Maybe a massive update post is in order in a couple of weeks. But for now, I'll just tell y'all what's been going on.

So, in the garden, we haven't seen a lot in the way of nesting birds. In fact, none of our nestboxes were used this year, despite our best efforts to place them all in the best spots. What we have seen, is a lot of fledglings in our garden, who have popped out of nests in gardens surrounding ours. The first fledglings we saw were Blue Tits. We have had a family of around 6 or 7 fledglings being fed by two parents. These were followed by noisy Starlings and Magpies, Robins, Dunnocks and Great Tits. It really has been busy. We still have Blackbird adults carrying insects off to various nests recently too, so maybe they will be next on the list.

Our plants also made the winter to spring transition a while back, and it was great to have planted a great deal more this year. We have grown much more veg this year, and it was great to plant a lot more flowers, shrubs etc. In fact, we have spent a LOT more time sorting stuff out in the garden this year than we have before, so its now the closest its ever got to looking neat. We've still left lots of wild messy bits though to attract the lizards and frogs.

As well as all this, I've made a camera upgrade in the last few months. I now have a Canon 500D SLR camera, which I had been looking forward to buying for a couple of years before. It really is a brilliant piece of kit. I have the 18-55mm kit lens, but I have now only just saved up for a 300mm lens for bird photos. I really look forward to taking some photos to share on this blog soon.

Even though I take about 10 GCSE subjects, I usually have more than one exam per subject, and so far I've taken 12 exams. 6 more to go over the next two weeks, so I'm off to revise some more in a minute. Once I've finished them all, I'll have loads of time for posting this summer. So stick around folks, more to come soon.

RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch

Just a quick posting to show our results for the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch. At about 8:30 this morning, I topped up the feeders, ready for the count. With a cup of tea, some binoculars, and a pen and paper, we started the count at 9:00 and finished at 10:00. Here's how it went...

We saw a total of 14 species this year, one more than we did last year. I was pleased to see a Song Thrush pop by, as it did for the birdwatch last year. It's not a bird we see too frequently. The usual suspects also visited, although we didn't see a Long-tailed Tit, Coal Tit or Starling this time around. However, the most frequent visitor was a Blackcap, which was around for most of the hour. Here's the full count:

Blackbird x2
Chaffinch x3
Dunnock x3
House Sparrow x5
Magpie x2
Blackcap x2
Great Tit x2
Song Thrush x1
Woodpigeon x8
Blue Tit x2
Collared Dove x2
Goldfinch x5
Greenfinch x4
Robin x2

I enjoyed the hour, and I have enjoyed checking out other people's counts too via their blogs. Later on in the day, I saw a a couple more species, including Long-tailed Tit and Starling. I was also glad I managed to get a few shots of the Blackcaps throughout the day. They have been showing great interest in the new ground bird table, which is fairly close to the house. The did struggle to get a look in at times though with the Woodpigoens and Magpies around! The photos in the montage below were taken after the birdwatch.

Left- Magpie, top right- Female Blackcap, bottom right- Male Blackcap

I noticed that one of the female Blackcaps was looking around the ivy on the garden fence. The photo below shows it perching on the cable for the camera nest box.

It was great to see a Robin have a look inside one of our open-fronted nest boxes today. We have seen two male Robins chasing each other around for a while now, and it looks as though one of these males is now paired up with a female. I could be wrong, but it looks as though this is the case. Anyway, I was glad to see that the Robin found the box amongst the ivy, it really is quite well hidden. Maybe it would be worth setting up a camera in this box.

Lastly, I would like to apologise for not keeping up with your blogs and commenting. I have had quite a bit of school-related work recently, mostly revision for GCSE mock exams, which are over the next two weeks. I expect that, from now until the end of June, I will only post when I can. Half-term soon though, so I expect I will be able to keep up with the blog then. Have a great week, and I look forward to seeing many of your Garden Birdwatch postings soon.