Kamis, 26 April 2012

Locked On: Hobby catching mayfly mid-flight

This is the split second before a Hobby plucks a mayfly from the air. A moment that is over so quickly you can barely register it’s happened when watching these lightening fast birds dart about the sky with the agility to match their impressive speed. Personally, I very rarely see Hobbies. I could count on one hand (almost one finger) how many times I’ve seen this bird of prey before, let alone 12 together! So when I recently had the pleasure of sitting in a field for several hours watching so many hunting mayflies mid-air, I was delighted to capture an image that shows just that split second before it’s all over for the mayfly.
A Hobby locks on to it's prey, a mayfly, mid-flight just moments before plucking it from the air.
The Hobby, about to pluck a mayfly from the air
Camera: Nikon D3s
Lens: 600 VR + 1.4x TC
Exif: 1/1600, f8, ISO 1100
Support: Gitzo GT 5541 LS, Wimberley MKII
If you’ve seen these birds hunt you will know just how amazingly fast they are, and keeping them in the viewfinder is hard enough, let alone getting images of them! Against a plain blue sky it’s fine but as soon as you have a backdrop with contrast and detail, it’s all the camera see’s. Another problem was they would fly in to the wind, which would slow them down slightly, but then they’d suddenly turn in to it and be gone like a shot. As a result I found myself having to manual focus as I tracked them through the lens, once I managed to find them of course, as the field of view at 850mm isn’t very big. I have to admit there is no more frustrating a feeling than having a species you don’t see very often, in so many numbers, right in front of you but there be such difficulty in getting an image. It’s part and parcel of wildlife photography though (and if I’m honest, part of what makes it so much fun!) and I’m glad we persisted as although this image is quite heavily cropped, if nothing else it serves to illustrate the frantic feeding action we witnessed whilst we were there – oh, and show that my manual focus hit rate for fast small moving birds is pretty low…lol
I’m not sure how well it comes across, but below is also a short video I filmed on my iPhone to show the Hobbies as they flew about the sky – of course, with a wide angle it probably looks like they were not moving that fast, but train a telephoto on them and they are like little rockets! lol

Bird Feeding – A Cheap And Enjoyable Hobby

By Ken Lawless  
As the economy continues to deteriorate, families find themselves having to  find entertainment and hobbies that they can afford and yet, still enjoy. As a  result, more and more families are rediscovery birding or feeding birds as a fun  inexpensive hobby.


Bird watching or birding, which is already one of the more popular past times  in the country, is destined to become even more popular. Feeding birds has  always been a hobby that many people without a lot of money enjoyed. Walk to any  city park on a nice day and you may see city residents sitting on the park  benches and dropping bread crumbs for the visiting birds. If you own a home, you  can do the same thing in your back yard.
Feeding birds is a fun activity that the entire family can enjoy together -  the adults as well as the children. You don’t need to buy special expensive  equipment, you don’t have to spend a lot of money traveling to far away places,  and you don’t have to build your schedule around the timing of specific events.  Birds are pretty much active at some sort of activity practically all times of  the day giving you plenty of time to enjoy your past time.
The key to attracting birds to your yard is providing them with food. You can  even aim towards attracting specific species of birds by placing their food  favorites it your back yard feeders. When birds discover that your yard has  food, which they eventually will, you may find your yard turning into a virtual  aviary.
And, if you have trees or suitable nesting places nearby, you may even find  some taking up residence in your back yard to be near the new source of food  that they have discovered. You may find that watching some of these bird  families are as much enjoyable a attending the latest romantic or action film in  the movies.
Finding nourishment to give to the birds is not expensive at all. In fact,  you can make quite a few of the recipes yourself. And, you don’t have to provide  all of the food that the birds eat, you are only supplementing it. It only takes  a little food to attract them to your garden or yard.
Introducing your kids to feeding birds teaches them how connected we all are  to nature and teaches them to respect it. Feeding birds is also an activity that  brings the family closer together. If history is a guide, your kids will look  back on this time you spent with them as some of the best times of their  lives.
You can find additional information on birds such as solar bird bath and bird houses at our website.

Hobby

Apart from stragglers, all our local swifts departed well in advance of mid-August. Their stay here is so short; in fact, I did not record them this spring until May 11. The skies are again silent and their shrill screaming greatly missed.
Shortly before the main swift departure my elder son became aware of high-pitched distress calls in his Thorpe garden. It was almost dusk, but within a short distance of his windows was a hobby pinning an unfortunate swift to the ground.
The hobby is one of the very few birds of prey capable of outflying swifts; perhaps at a speed approaching 100mph. The literature presents a full catalogue of victims, extending to escaped budgerigars which are taken regularly.
Hobbies provide impressive aerobatic displays spending much of their time in high soaring flight almost out of sight before plummeting earthward with closed wings at a great speed. Wings are spread only when the birds are within a few feet of the ground.
Fortunate observers have described exceptionally fast pursuit flights. These involve dashing over treetops, diving earthward together, sailing skyward to hang in the wind and then careering high in the heavens with the male even looping the loop as his partner twists and flies on her back to the accompaniment of shrill calls.
After the young hobbies leave the nest, their parents continue feeding them but within a few days they will hunt slow-flying beetles before turning their attention to such rapidly moving grey as dragonflies. Only much later, following prolonged aerial games, do they try hunting birds or bats.
Hobby in flightHobbies regularly hunt late in the evening seeking insects which appear at dusk, as well as on flocks of swallows about to enter reedbed roosts. A migrant hobby will sometimes linger for days at Hickling, Strumpshaw or Titchwell Reserves, each of which attracts swarms of roosting swallows during early autumn. Perhaps hobbies follow prey south to tropical Africa in the same manner that skuas follow terns.
A hobby in high aerobatic pursuit of flying prey demonstrates a wonderful mastery of the air. Victims are almost invariably taken on the wing, often consisting of birds which are themselves swift fliers.

Jumat, 20 April 2012


Hamster Ball

I ran into a rather unexpected bit of culture shock this weekend while watching TV with Mutsumi. Disney’s latest 3D animal flick “Bolt” has hit Tokyo and primetime television is loaded with commercials for the new movie. The lead cast of the film is made up of TV superstar dog Bolt, cat Mittens, and sidekick hamster Rhino, pictured below:
Rhino from Bolt
Perpetually cheerful hamster seemingly unfazed by his being trapped in a hamster ball. Not a bad setup for a comedic foil. Or so I thought until Mutsumi asked: “I wonder why he’s in that ball?” It hadn’t even occurred to me that Mutsumi had no idea what a hamster ball was. A quick survey among our Japanese friends came up with a variety of answers as to what they thought the mystery ball was: from a balloon to some sort of energy barrier to a medical bubble like the one used by that kid in Seinfeld. No one we asked thought that this was the sort of thing that someone would, or even should, willfully insert a living hamster.

It was time for a quick bit of internet education. A brief search on Google turned up several images like the one below (along with more than a few mentions of animal cruelty):
Hamster in a Ball
So, there it was. The hamster ball as a plastic toy into which hamster owners place their pets so they can run around the living room, but not get lost under the couch.
Mutsumi’s first reaction: “Oh, that’s awful!”
Mutsumi’s second reaction: “Can you play soccer with it?”
I also had to assure her that no sane person keeps their hamster in a ball all the time.
With the perpetual nature of Hollywood’s big releases, it’s funny the things you take for granted as common cultural knowledge. I wonder what Disney’s Japanese PR offices thought of Rhino’s hamster ball. Did they decide it was too hard to explain or did they just take it in stride? Who knows, maybe it’s all part of a larger marketing plan and I’m going to start seeing rodents running around in Bolt-branded hamster balls all over Tokyo.

Sabtu, 07 April 2012

HAMSTER

"Tahu tanggung jawab sebelum tangan" berlaku semua itu tentu saja. Sebuah hamstery baik menyediakan perumahan yang aman dan nyaman serta perawatan, gizi dan stimulasi untuk hamster nya. Stimulasi yang baik berarti bahwa hamster diperlakukan sebagai hewan peliharaan. Mereka tidak dimasukkan ke kandang untuk kecil atau penuh sesak, mereka diberi mainan, roda dan aksesoris lainnya kandang yang diperlukan seperti mainan mengunyah dan gulungan kertas toilet dan hal-hal alam itu.


Sangat penting untuk memulai perlahan saat menatap hamstery, coba dan membangun pengalaman sebelum bergegas masuk Memiliki hamstery adalah jangka panjang sehingga butuh waktu untuk mendapatkan pengetahuan dan sedikit pengalaman dari berbicara dengan peternak lain sebelum bergegas keluar untuk memulai sendiri. Mulailah perlahan-lahan dengan bergabung klub hamster, menghadiri pameran, belajar, memiliki hamster tunggal maka dengan sepasang peternakan tunggal dan bukan menembak untuk membeli saham dalam angka ganda. Jangan terpesona oleh miriad warna di luar sana memilih satu atau dua dan berkonsentrasi.


Sebuah hamstery baik adalah tentang berkembang biak untuk kesejahteraan berkembang biak, penguatan genetika dan temperamen dan kesehatan serta menciptakan spesimen estetis menyenangkan. Hamstery adalah tentang kualitas daripada kuantitas.


Jika Anda tertarik untuk memulai hamstery Anda sendiri maka pastikan bahwa Anda siap untuk menempatkan semua hamster Anda harus di atas segalanya. Ingat makhluk hidup yang telah mengaku bertanggung jawab atas.

Kamis, 05 April 2012


 Hamster

Hamster adalah hewan kecil yang membuat mereka mudah untuk merawat dan murah untuk menjaga. Ukuran kecil mereka berarti mereka dapat tinggal di kandang relatif kecil, bahkan sangkar burung tua atau akuarium dapat digunakan.

"Pepper" adalah Hamster "Pepper" Golden
Emas HamsterPhoto Courtesy Janet

    Hamster adalah lembut, menarik dan menyenangkan untuk menonton. Mereka yang hampir tidak berbau dan biasanya bersih. Semua ini aspek membuat mereka hewan peliharaan yang besar bagi siapa pun tetapi terutama untuk apartemen atau rumah di mana ruang adalah pada premium. Mereka aktif di malam hari, jadi 90% dari waktu bangun mereka berada di malam hari ketika kandang gelap. Mereka juga dapat sedikit gugup ketika pindah ke rumah baru, sehingga mereka mungkin mengambil sedikit waktu, bersama dengan kesabaran dan kasih, untuk menjadi mapan.

    "Pepper" digambarkan di sini, adalah Hamster Emas sangat cantik. Dr Janet Jungle saham apa yang dikatakan tentang dia ... "Dia sangat manis, cerdas, dan ramah Suatu ketika ia membuka pintu kandangnya seorang diri.. Dia suka pergi untuk berjalan lama di luar atau di bola-nya. Di punggungnya ia memiliki pola berbentuk hati!" Janet ...

    The Hamster Emas adalah jenis yang asli dari hamster berukuran menengah yang telah dibesarkan dengan sukses selama bertahun-tahun dan tumbuh subur sebagai hewan peliharaan peliharaan. The Hamster Dwarf Rusia adalah yang paling tersedia dari varietas kerdil.

    Saat ini, hamster datang dalam banyak warna yang berbeda dengan berbagai jenis rambut. "Pepper" digambarkan di atas adalah Hamster Emas. Tiga bayi (gambar dibawah dengan informasi yang berkembang biak) yang berambut panjang Hamster Golden, juga dikenal sebagai Hamster Angora Emas karena mantel panjang mereka.