mayhewblog.com » bird

Snow Storm Feeding

Jonathan — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 22:35:15 +0000

This morning started with another winter snow storm. The bird feeder was very active and the birds did not seem to care at all. I recently hanged the squirrel proof feeder and filled it with black oil sunflower seeds to try and tempt some Chickadee’s into my new bird house. Hopefully they will use it this spring!

Red Cardinal

Jonathan — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 17:26:11 +0000

We got another 5 inches of snow yesterday so after I was done clearing the driveway this morning I caught sight of this bird on the feeder as I left for work. It’s a male red cardinal and it’s bright colours looked particularly vivid against the snowy background. I scrambled to get my camera out and my telephoto lens fitted. The result was a pretty blurry and grainy picture but after a resize for the blog it looked pretty good.

My Photos on NH Chronicle – Spring Edition

Jonathan — Wed, 26 May 2010 14:10:19 +0000

WMUR broadcast the Spring Edition of their NH Chronicle show on Monday night. The show contained a collection of images submitted by NH residents of the spring season.

Here are the pictures featured and a video clip of an excerpt from the show:

Bird of Prey

Jonathan — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:34:33 +0000

We were passing by the entrance to the Pease Golf Club yesterday and saw this bird at the side of the road. I pulled into the Bus Terminal car park and got a shot with my 70-300mm.

BirdCam – May 20th

Jonathan — Tue, 20 May 2008 10:46:16 +0000

After just over two weeks of incubating, the first baby blue tits have hatched!

The following clip shows the hatchlings (now just a few hours old!) being fed caterpillers by both the female and male adult. The adults chirp when they arrives with the food to get the attention of the baby birds.

There were 11 eggs in total and 6 or 7 have hatched today.

BirdCam – May 5th

Jonathan — Mon, 05 May 2008 21:07:35 +0000

The bird left the nest for a while this afternoon allowing us to count 9 eggs!

In this clip the female bird incubates the eggs while the male feeds her. At the end of the clip they both leave the nest and leave the eggs on display for the camera!

BirdCam – May 4th

Jonathan — Sun, 04 May 2008 22:06:38 +0000

Eggs!

We first spotted them on May 1st (last Thursday) but counted at least 6 eggs on Saturday (May 3rd). The Blue Tit has been closely guarding them from the prying eyes of our camera so it’s been quite difficult to count exactly how many there are. Also, prior to leaving the nest each time it covers up the eggs with it’s nesting!

The following clip was recorded earlier today and gives you a sneak peek (don’t blink) at the new eggs.

BirdCam – April 25th

Jonathan — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 22:35:10 +0000

The blue tit decides to spend a night in the box. It has not been around much in the last few days so fingers crossed it will stick around a bit!

This is quite a short clip as it’s only really sleeping, although you do see it fidget a little and tuck it’s head under it’s wing for a little shut eye!

Apologies for the poor sound quality in the first half of this video.

BirdCam – April 20th

Jonathan — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 19:47:55 +0000

Our blue tit was hard at work this morning doing some serious nest building. For the first time it looked like the bird was creating the hole in the nest in prepation for the eggs. You can see it doing this by burrowing its head and shifting around in the bottom right corner of the picture.

In the afternoon I setup my DV camera to capture some video of the front of the box. After about 3 hours of on and off waiting, the bird reappeared and gave me some great shots!

BirdCam – April 14th

Jonathan — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 22:45:26 +0000

This will hopefully be the first of a series of videos captured from the Blue Tit nesting box in our back garden.

The box is fitted with a wireless camera which transmits the pictures to a receiver indoors connected to my laptop using the KWorld USB2800D video capture device. I then edit the final video in Adobe Premiere and upload to Viddler ready for hosting.

The Blue Tit has been making it’s nest for a few weeks now but has not spent many nights inside the box, presumably in favour of searching for a suitable mate! This time last year a blue tit had completed it’s nest and was sleeping full time in the box, so we are hoping this little fellow will start to settle down quite soon!

I will continue to post more “BirdCam” videos throughout the spring.