frogesque

Working OK here, what browser are you on (I'm on FireFox)

But did the panel manage to convince the computer?

We have our first clump of spawn this morning! Gone chilly again but it doesn't seem to be putting them off as there is a lot of activitity in the pond. Some of the females especially look huge so it could be a bumper year.

Gone very chilly here today (We have had several snow showers!) and the pond has gone a bit quiet. The other night it was standing room only and I had to round up half a dozen frogs and chase them into the pond before I could let the dog out.

Turned mild and wet today and the pond is alive with frogs. No spawn yet but a few are croaking and I think the chorus will be going full volume after dusk.

We have a few frogs lurking and at least one pair coupled but the pond is still a bit cold yet. If we get a warmish spell during the latter part of the week there may be a bit more activity. As a matter of interest, we have only had 3 or 4 days with ice on the pond and it has never completely frozen over this year.

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They are on the move : cue X Files music! http://www.thejournal.ie/sinkhole-drama-car-gone-1297518-Feb2014/

A mystery rock on Mars that suddenly appeared in front of NASA's Opportunity rover may look like a tasty donut, but it is like nothing ever seen on the Martian surface before. More from link http://www.space.com/24356-mars-rock-mystery-opportunity-rover-photos.html Don't really buy the wheel flip theory, could this 'rock' be the result of outgassing and chemical deposition?

You'll need good eyesight - these are polar NCs over the Antarctic!

Cool indeed! Sounds a very simple tecnique but extraordinarily difficult to get such precise results.

When ancient forest is gone - it's gone. I'ts not just about trees, it's the whole flora and forna that goes with it. Replanting with commercial species doesn't replace the loss.

Nicely spotted! I suspect hey aren't as rare as some folk think. The real problem is they are normally very brief. You also need to observe them side on or at least obliquely. Head on and they just don't show. You also need partial cloud cover at the right height for them to form and be seen. Overcast is no good and clear skies may produce standing waves with no clouds forming. Wind shear is the key, a streaky bacon sort of sky is always worth scanning but sometimes they just pop out in front of you. I've seen a few in the UK but this was the best developed that I've managed to photograph someyears ago at Milnathort, Kinrossshire.

Let the dog out during the early morning and spotted a couple. A lot of cloud about and a bit cold standing at the door in my PJs so was only looking for a couple of mins.

So, in yer basic English: Something(s?) went bang in the atmoshphere about 12,000years ago (give or take a few days) and deposited a load of cosmic soot worldwide. Just love geologyspeak! Have I got the gist of it though?

I'd give it another 10 mins before it hits Edinbugh!

Snow has started here in Thornton, Fife. Very blustery but the worst of the gales seem to have passed.

Ditto! As a kid I dreamt of still being around for Halley but it was a proper dud. I did manage to spot it with the bins but it wasn't a great target. Hyakutake was a good naked eye show all be it a bit brief, Hale-Bopp was magnificent and could bee seen for months!

It's not a simple case of warming, you need atmospheric pressure as well in order for a liquid water phase to be stable on the surface.

Sounds Biblicle!

1st thing on the shopping list? Spare batteries! Nothing worse than being out in the wilds and no backup. With regard to lenses, it depends what you want to do. Uber fast 500mm telephotos will get the distant shots but they come at a price. A lens I really like is a Sigma prime, 20mm 1:1.8. It has a good wide angle (both ends of a rainbow) and at its limit of f1.8 it's reasonably fast. I bought it mainly for nightime photography but it doubles well as a low light portrait lens. For a tripod I'd get two, the heaviest and most stable that you can reasonably lug up two flights of stairs and either a lightweight monopod or a simple pocket sized beanbag and use a chair, rock, fencepost or car bonnet to sit it on. A cable release is also essential if you are going for long (1/30 to 30 second exposure). My cable release is a long one (5m) so that I can sit inside the car on dark chilly nights with the camera set up on a tripod outside. For carting the tripod about I use a foldable picnic chair carry bag - does the job! Also, it's worth enroling at a local college for a non vocational session of digital photography so you can learn what all the buttons and gismos do and how they affect the finished results.

I wouldn't regard any form of plant life a reliable indicator. Too many variables not least of which is the previous season's ability to set buds. More reliable are measurements of sea ice and glacier retardation or growth Depending on who you read, these measurements do seem to indicate longer term warming.

After a death comes the relatives!

We have lost all but one of our goldfish in the pond. The usual suspects were: Heron, Cat, or Fox but the method of predation was a mystery as the fish were consumed on the lawn. Now, a heron swallows a fish whole, a cat is a fussy eater (if at all - sometimes it's just the kill) and a fox would drag the carcass away and consume it in some covert spot. All the fish were eaten quite openly on the lawn with little but a few scales and some bones left. A complete mystery untill early one morning I let the dog out and there on the lawn was yet another fish with a pair of ravens feeding on it with the same pattern of scales and bones being discarded. Four young ravens were sitting on a roof watching the adults. Needless to say, the pond has now been securely netted so they can't get in. This mystery has been followed by another; namely collections of feathers on the lawn. Usual suspects; cat, dog, fox but this afternoon while working in the garden a sparrowhawk came in like a bullet, landed on the lawn and left just as quick when it saw me. The sparrows in the hedge were going beserk! Looks as if the sparrowhawk has been cornering the sparrows in the garden and picking them off. I would never have thought that these predators would visit a fairly small domestic garden!

I think if you compare the annual toll of wildlife roadkill to that of wind turbines it will bring it more into perspective. I watched a skein of geese negotiate a flight path through a windfarm the other day and they didn't really seem to be perturbed. Swans and geese swallowing lead shot however die a really horible death from lead poisoning. More on topic: certain bats maybe more susceptable to ultrasonic frequencies generated by turbine tip vortices - possibly to the point of 'deafening' them. This could be similar to the anecdotal claims that whales and dolphins are affected by shipping. Truth is, I don't know but the claims do warrent futher investigation.