It took me a while to find it:
Thanks, Jonathan.
Archive for the 'Pics' Category
A traveller through the fields
We have a couple of families of Song Thrushes in our garden all year, they're always pottering about on the ground, hunting snails and thrashing them against stones to get to their juicy innards.
In times of lasting snow-cover, however, their relatives come to visit, and they come in flocks of 20 or so. The hassle of hopping around looking for ground-based meals is not for them - they're a lot more acrobatic and they use this talent to raid whatever they can find in the fruit-trees...
The visitors are mainly Fieldfares, although there are a few Redwings tagging along.
All three species mentioned are on the RSPB Red List, and all three belong to the same genus: Turdus.
It seems a shame that these likeable little birds have been given such a crappy-sounding Latin moniker.
0.5 mph
Geoff called in on Wednesday, he had no work on but couldn't stay at his place because his wife was working from home due to the snow. By strange chance, I was in the same boat, but I aced him by virtue of the fact that my girls were both off school due to snivelly colds, AND Chris was working from home due to the snow.
After a cuppa we both managed to "remember" that we had parcels that needed taking to the post office. Rather too conveniently I was then asked to buy and deliver a paper for the Outlaws and to return with some milk. Naturally, I grabbed the chance to get some fresh air and to try out the new Quechua Bionnassay Trousers that Chris gave to me for Christmas.
We only did a short loop around the village, but after delivering the paper and sending the mail we got sidetracked and somehow ended up in The Anchor. We managed to take four hours to walk the loop, which is less than a couple of miles. Now how did that happen?
Of course, there are some mandatory clickable snow-based pics...
As you can see, we've not had much snow here although there are places within ten miles where they've had over ten times as much.
As for the new trews, they were great. I'll concoct some sort of initial review after a few more days of use.
Observing Report 6th-7th December 2009 (Moon bits)
Sorry, this is a bit late...
Sunday evening was forecast to be cloudy. I wasn't planning to get out to the obsy but seeing as the sky was almost clear late on I took a chance and got set up to observe the Moon and possibly get some webcam footage.
The seeing wasn't brilliant but there was plenty of detail to be seen. After an hour or so of crater-hopping with the 3.5mm Hyperion eyepiece I changed the setup and got stuck in with the webcam, getting some reasonable data during the small hours. Registax-processed results as follows:
Clavius (136 miles dia.)
On the right, working downwards: Abulfeda (38 miles dia.), Almanon, Geber, Azophi/Abenezra/Abenezra C
Tycho (52 miles dia.)
Vallis Alpes (79 miles long, 7 miles wide at maximum)
Just in case you don't know your way around up there, here's some help:
Before you ask, no, I didn't take this pic.
Going fractal
If only these things were to grow a bit bigger, they'd make great edible Christmas trees:
