Storm with no name

As usual we were extremely fortunate with our weather on the Wirral during the nameless storm that obliterated the rest of the UK.  It was definitely worthy of a name but I suspect it crept up too fast for administration purposes.

Arctic blasts  we did not escape, neither the torrential rain which combined with flu made visiting the woodland project impossible.  Lots to catch up on.

The moon is at its largest and closest until 2040 so  I decided to take a number  of waxing and waning photographs for my next folding book project,  which I will feature in next months blog.

The Blue tits are checking out the ancient bird box already this last week of January.  All the tits great and small are very vocal at the moment which in my book heralds an early spring.  Last year we had a false start with a hard cold snap, hopefully this year will be not so deceiving.

Having collated all the bird recordings from the last five years over December it is now time to step up the collection and produce something.  Amazingly, my unknowns file is now empty as I can put names to nearly all the recordings as my ear has become  trained.  Not that this is a priority,  the joy you get from listening is far more important. Having said that  studying visual representations of bird song is a fascinating process.
I still have not captured a recording of a Curlew which has been on the hit list for several years.

 

Robin song

Recently I have undertaken research on how to build a parabolic microphone,  which normally costs between £500 -£1000  to buy.  My own microphones work extremely well but need focusing to capture as much song as possible without interference from background noise, which is relentlessly persistent from traffic, planes  and trains.  ( many birds oddly choose to  sing close to roads)  It is hoped to have the apparatus ready by peak dawn chorus time in May.  Maybe the Curlew might make it to the collection this year.