Solar eclipse and ducks

This morning our ducks returned, and they came again this evening. We had seen them occasionally during the winter, but this looks like they may be back for the summer. Unusually last year they stayed until December instead of disappearing as normal in July or August.

That was a promising beginning to the day, though we were doubtful of seeing the eclipse since cloud was forecast. Five minutes before the maximum eclipse, the sun appeared through thin cloud and I was lucky enough to get this shot.

I took a sequence of photos at 10 minute intervals - more often around maximum eclipse - all taken at exactly the same settings. This gives an idea as to how much darker it became (though the contrast in the photos is far greater than was actually apparent). The numbers on the pictures are minutes before/after maximum.

I also took some automatic ones, and found that 1/125th sec at F4, ISO 80 at 25 minutes before maximum looked identical to 1/50th sec at F3.5, ISO 200 at maximum. That's equivalent to a difference of 3 stops, or 8 times the exposure.

27 minutes after maximum, the still partially eclipsed sun managed to produce a rainbow.

A few minutes later, the sun began to shine brightly, and I used a colander as recommended to get some rather fuzzy images of the sun by projecting the shadow onto a piece of white paper.

I also took the temperature every 10 minutes, using two thermometers for greater sensitivity, but the eclipse only shows as a minor dip in the generally rising temperature. Maximum eclipse (93.73%) here in Glasgow was at 9:34am.

I felt very pleased to have had such a successful morning, particularly as we had expected nothing but cloud.

Bramblings and Redpolls

This week has been notable in our garden, not only for some unusual species, but also for the huge numbers that have been visiting.

The most exciting visitors included 2 Bramblings which visited on 17th January and reappeared today. In the picture below, from left to right, are a female Siskin, a male Siskin, a male Redpoll and a female Brambling.

The picture below of the female Brambling shows the scaling pattern on the back and the strong stripes on the head.

The male Brambling (below) has a much darker head.

The other exciting visitors have been a large flock of Siskins and Redpolls which have been with us since the beginning of this week. Today I counted 46 Redpolls and 25 Siskins, though the actual totals were probably much larger as they retreat to a tree which is out of sight from the house. Below are some Redpolls on one of our nyger feeders.

There are more pictures and some videos on the Siskins and Redpolls page on our website.

These birds are a lot of work, as I need to clean all 4 nyger feeders and all the surfaces below them every day, preferably while it is dark so I don't disturb them, in order to minimise the risk of disease among such large numbers of birds. They have been eating about 1KG of nyger every day. Fortunately one of our local shops has it on special offer just now!

Our ducks, which returned more than 2 months earlier than usual, have also been turning up in large numbers. Two days ago there were 11 ducks outside, though we have had as many as 12.

Due to the water freezing in the cold weather, I have been scattering corn on the grass around the water tray. Yesterday the Wood Pigeons discovered it, and there were 13 Wood Pigeons gobbling it up.

Fortunately there is a simple solution. The ducks mostly come at night when the wood pigeons are asleep. It is also at night that the water is most likely to freeze, so I can leave corn on the grass at night, and put it in the water during the day.

There is more about our ducks on our website

Unusual birds in our garden

Around Christmas we often seem to have some unusual bird visitors to our garden. In previous years we have seen Blackcap, Iceland gull and Reed bunting among others during the Christmas period. This year proved to be rewarding, no doubt partly due to the snow which has now been lying for a week.

On Christmas morning we had visits from a song thrush and a redpoll. Although we have had both species before, we hadn't seen either since the spring.

Song thrush

In the afternoon I went out into the park next to our house on my skis and spotted this treecreeper. Although this one wasn't in our garden, it wasn't far away. We have seen treecreepers here before, but not very often.

On the 26th we noticed a large thrush-like bird in one of the trees opposite. It made a brief visit to our garden to collect a cotoneaster berry. Viewed through the binoculars, it turned out to be a fieldfare, which is a new record for our garden. I tried to take a photo, but at that moment it took off so this is all I managed to get.

In the evening we were just going out for a night walk in the snow when we were astonished to see a pair of mallard ducks approaching our house. They seemed to recognise us when we appeared, and we can only think that they were a pair that visit us in summer and could find no open water in the cold weather. They were certainly very hungry. We have ducks visiting our garden every year, but only between late March and August.

Our complete list of species for Christmas week:

Blackbird Black-headed gull Bluetit Carrion crow Chaffinch Coal tit Common gull Dunnock Fieldfare Goldfinch Great tit Greenfinch

House sparrow Jackdaw Magpie Mallard Redpoll Robin Rook Siskin Song thrush Starling Wood pigeon

Morning visitors

The birds in our garden seem to become more tame every day. All the following photos of our most frequent visitors were taken yesterday morning and this morning.

11th. 7:04am
This duck is usually the first to arrive at around 6.30am. She feeds on corn submerged in water, but also likes Fred's home-made bread which we soak in water.

11th. 7.08am
The starlings are next to arrive. They get dried mealworms.

12th. 6.50am
The jackdaws like peanuts and currants as well as the mealworms.

12th. 7.06am.

This morning we had 3 blackbirds all queuing up for currants which they were taking away, presumably to feed young.

Ducks

Our ducks have returned!

Actually we first saw them two days ago on 1st April, but I was a bit busy then with the purple saxifrage.

This was taken at 6.30am on 1st April when they first appeared.

Today a single drake (might be the same one) has visited twice.

They are very consistent about when they return. Last year it was 29th March, and in 2007 it was 30th March. They usually stay until about the end of July.

For more about our ducks, see the duck pages of our website.