UKGW Macro Safari Video

03/09/2011 by nigel.

Here is a macro video that I made in the UKGW garden. I used my Canon 550D with a macro lens in video crop mode..
In the video amongst other mini beasts you will see a White Death Crab Spider with an unsuspecting lunch of a hover fly.

I call it my Macro Safari..

Enjoy.

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2011 So-Far

03/09/2011 by nigel.

Greetings and welcome back to the UKGW Blog

Over the course of this year due to other commitments I have been a bit slack with the UKGW blog. So rather than try to make up and remember all of the goings on of the last year in the garden I will mention a few things that have happen and post up the story in pictures.

I decided to take part of the wildlife area and turn it into a micro wildflower meadow..
When I say micro I mean around 5m x 5m..

Even this small area has attracted different insects to the garden that were not normally seen.

We have a lot of the harlequin ladybirds around this year but also quite a few British ladybirds which is nice to see.

The teasel that I planted over a year ago came to life this year, it’s like a natural sculpture.

The pond has seen the usual dragon and damselflies along with the pond skaters and water boatman.

This year also saw a very large population of common newts.

So here it is… The UKGW garden blog in pictures..

February

May

June

July

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First Entry of 2011

13/03/2011 by nigel.

So here we are and the first entry for 2011. I have been doing a little maintenance to the cams in the garden due to a couple of cams that decided to stop working. I have removed the Fox cam for now and replaced the Hedgehog feeding station cam ready for the little critters to come out of hibernation.
I have also made a few changes to the bird feeders; the mealworm log is now raised and fixed to the nut and fat ball feeder post. I have also attached a tray so that I can add some other bird food mixes for the smaller birds, although the bigger birds still like to help themselves. The ground feeder is still being used but is not fitted with a cam at the moment.

After replacing the hog feeding station cam the first capture was of a couple of frogs passing through followed by a newt.

And today a first time visitor or at least the first time we have seen one a Blackcap visited the feeding tray.

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The Robin and I…

10/05/2010 by nigel.

About a week ago a little Robin started to show an interest in what I was doing in the green house. So I threw a few meal worms out. I started dropping the worms closer and close until they were within a foot of where I was sitting. So I took advantage of this and managed to get some very nice close up still shots…

A worm in payment for a picture..

Over the course of the week I started to hold out my arm with a few worms in my hand.. The persistence paid off and on Sunday the Robin took the worms from my hand for the first time. Now when I go out into the garden the Robin is waiting for me. Today it actually started to fly around me before I even had a chance to get the meal-worms out.

I managed to shoot some footage of the little fella feeding from my hand.. You can see a small clip on the UKGW YouTube video channel.

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Missing Feeds

10/05/2010 by nigel.

Some of you have emailed me about the two feeds that are down… This is just temporary while I do some maintenance with the feeds and within the garden.. I should have them back up soon.

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New Hog House First Visitors

29/03/2010 by nigel.

Last night we had the first visitors to the new Hog House. One of the hogs was having a nice sleep when it was rudely interrupted by another hog.

The full video can be seen on the UKGW video channel.

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Robin Action Shots….

28/03/2010 by nigel.

Here are a few great frames from Feeder one of a Robin..

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Meal Worm Feeder

28/03/2010 by nigel.

Lying around in the garage for a while now I had an old log with a hole in the side of it. I decide to run a little experiment and see if I could get the birds to take meal worm from it.
I made the hole a little wider so that the birds could get their heads in to root around for the worms.
Meal worms are good escape artist so I was a little concerned that they would all crawl out of the log before they were eaten. No such luck for the worms… Minutes after placing the log on the bird table a Robin came down and had a good fill of worms, this was shortly followed by a female Blackbird. The second time I filled the log with worms it was almost as if they were waiting.. No sooner had I reached the top of the garden and both the Robin and the Blackbird appeared to gorge on the worms.

Watch the video on the UKGW YouTube channel

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Our First Hedgehog Visit of 2010

27/03/2010 by nigel.

Yesterday evening saw our first Hedgehog visit for 2010.. The hog visited for the first time at around 22:23 and then again in the early hours.
I have been outside and rebuilt the hog feeding station today as it was starting to leak a lot. So a new feeding station and lots of fresh food… Lets hope as last years this will be a daily event.

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New Cam PSU Fitted

21/03/2010 by nigel.

I have just spent the day overhauling the cams and cables in the garden. Some of the cams had very noisy pictures due to degrading cables and in some cases degrading power supplies.

So as-well as replacing some cables I have also fitted one single PSU (power supply unit) to feed all of the cams. Tonight when all of the IR’s become active will be a test for the PSU.

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