Well the weather has been crap and currently I am fighting off an attempt to make me homeless, despite the fact I have four things that make me homeless. Fibromyalgia (memory, feet pain and many others), damaged right knee and collapsed discs in y back are just a few of the long list I have. In fact around 5% of what I have, if that.
Trust me it is a drag like you would not believe.
So what with that, the housing situation and the dreadful weather we have been having I ave been somewhat ... preoccupied. Also my legs kind of ... just sort of switched off three times. This was due to the attack on me causing anxiety attacks so bad that they switch off your legs, which can even become permanent. Something else to worry about, ,great.
But I have seen and got something that is kind of interesting as it has occurred both in my garden and 100 yards from my house, more sightings of Jersey Tiger Moths.
I find it amusing that I have never seen the more common Garden Tiger Moths but have now seen several Jersey Tiger Moths over two or three consecutive years. Cannot quite recall if it was last year I first saw them or the year before?
I have now seen three of these over the course of just a couple of days. First one in my garden that look a little tatty and then one about 100 yards away I filmed and then as I walked away another one flew past me.
I have also had a local friend about 2 miles south of me and who knows his animals, comment on one of these posts in Facebook and tell me that he has seen them in Bush Hill Park. So unusually they seem to be fairly abundant in Enfield.
I apologise for the quality of some of the pictures and a video but then they was done on a phone,, a Moto X Style. So ... kind of not bad. Lol.
I had a day out with one of my new cameras, the second one had not arrive just yet but is here now.
Unfortunately my new camera took a tumble and this was not my fault...I stood up from doingg some macro photography because a couple with a pram were coming along a path towards me. I then started to black-out, as I unfortunately so often do, and the next thing I was aware of was lying on the floor on my side and sitting up, wondering where I was.
Turned out I had some sort of major seizure. I could feel convulsions, or violently shaking, as I came around. I bumpeed into the couple later and it turned out I was out for like ten minutes.
I had one of these once before ... a very long time ago and was out for about thirty minutes.
Also quite unfortunately I had been fearing as well as expecting something like this to occur as my black-outs had been getting stronger and I had been falling down on the floor as opposed to leaning and hanging onto a magazine rack while I blacked out in Sainsburys or WH Smiths.
Anyway .. while I was out a got a few things ...
Like Orange Tip Butterflies ...
A very tiny Damselfly like insect which I have no idea what it is ...
A small moth with a single large central white blotch ...
My new CamPark Action Camera which is waterproof and going to ive me a whole new dimension to my videos ... SUB-AQUATIC ;) ...
I went out and did some filiming of British Wildlife but not as far as I wanted to and ended up very local at an old wood I like to walk.
Not many people about. Just how I like it!
Except for one person I kind of liked and chatted to for an hour. I ended up explaining about all my blogs and what I do ... to some looks of surprise, shock and horror. Lol.
She punched the air and said she was rooting for me.
Anyhoo I did some testing of a Koolertron Camera Shoulder Mount Stabilizer type ... contraption.
I also tested a replica Nikon remote while out to some mixed results, one time I depressed the buttong in front of the camera, to the right, to the left, below, behind and above and it worked on every press.
But other times it took a couple of presses. I will alter the contacts for the battery and see if that improves things next time?
Anyhoo I filmed me walking a section where I sometimes catch glimpses of Goldcrests, though up very high in the trees swooping out and in again.
I also see what I believe to be a Song Thrush, which is kind of a rare event these days. I believe I have seen one here before and several years prior to this one in 2016.
I have also seen one several miles north of here in the Fishers Green vicinity.
I also see a few Orange Tip Butterflies which is always nice to see.
Here are the testing videos ...
In this last one I end up doing a monologue on another blog subject unexpectedly. Due to an hor long conversation I had with a nice lady called Wyn...
But I persevered up in incline that goes on for roughly 1.5 miles and to a spot that was actually around 4.1 miles away from home.
That incline is not the only one I have to climb to get there either!
But for the first time this year, of 2016, I managed to get to one of my favourite spots I affectionately call the 'Crop Crossing'. Though it is technically not a crossing. Unless your in a tractor in which case it is a crossing.
It was flooded with yellow from the Rapeseed being grown in the fields there and the sky was brilliant blue with some nice clouds in one direction.
While I was there I saw a bird singing while flying high but then landed on some telegraph cables and looked look a Whitethroat Warbler after initially thinking they were Skylarks.
The singing from the cable should have been a signal that they were not Skylarks!
I realised they were indeed Whitethroats when I saw the videos and pictures on my PC when I got home!
Oh and there was a Buzzard out hunting. There are normally a pair of buzzards that are either in this vicinity or some woods about a mile or two south of this location.
After a long, long wait and my Sony Cybershot being technically broken for about 6 months I have finally gotten around to replacing it!
My Sony has a 50x zoom, which I cannot use anything close to any longer and has now been relegated to being permanently attached to a tripod for filming in the house. As short range it can still manage to do.
After an arduous journey and battle with London's public transport, some stupid mistakes and several times where I had to stop and hand near my pocket to grab my phone and call for an ambulance, I managed to somehow struggle through it and find the camera!
Rather oddly I had left the address behind of the Camera World store I was aiming for and though I knew its rough location I was a bit worried about ending up in hospital so headed for faithful old Jessops!
Before even exiting the station at Russell Square on the way there I was slumped against a wall on a staircase!
Only when I got to where Jessops was the last time I was in there ... it was not there!
That is the other problem with Fibromyalgia ... memory problems! I had forgotten to take the address to Camera World with me and never thought of checking to see if Jessops was still at the location it was when I was last in the in New Oxford Street! Dumb-arse!
I do not know if the slumping against the wall ore the burning, tingling feelings I had for thirty minutes afterwards was anything to do with Fibromyalgia, lack of blood pressure pills or something else? Or just an unfit bastard? Was a bit rough though, which means a lot of i say that.
Walking up Oxford Street instead of heading back into Tottenham Court Road, where some loom directed me, I walked past some scaffolding and there was a PC World! I know, I know I have had a refurbished item from them and it could have happened again. But I just wandered in just to see if they had a display one. They did. It was huge!
I saw an older gentleman who looked Indian standing looking miserable. I got the impression he might not be happy as all the younger sales people probably intercepted any sales and I asked "Well you look like your not doing much?"
After initial shock someone asked him something and walking him tot he camera I asked if they had any in stock. They did. He got the box out, I checked for any seals over the lid of the box, dead give-away to refurbished items, and there were none.
Often there are these little seals that are clear but when pulled off say the word 'void' in gold that magically appear.
I had these on three Nikon cameras I bought a few years back from Argos. Nikon do not put any seals on their box and Argos swore blind they did not do it and stated it was Nikon. Wrong.
I also had an Olympus camera that went wrong in a line of consecutively received and amounting to four cameras from Argos.
I had one professional Corsair Vengeance Keyboard with a large dent in the aluminium base plate from PC World, just in case you were wondering. Oddly the Roccas Ryos keyboard I exhhanged that one for and around 8 months down the line started missing keystroke now and then and also adding one, or even bloody two extra keystrokes! So I guess we can safely take a stab in the dark about where that came from?
To be fair the Sony Cybershot came from PC World and that was new. It ias also the only thing that I have bought that has worked flawlessly for well over two years until it got dropped on its head and it still works to a degree!
Well I have managed to get a head start and ahead of replacing my outdoor camera with a new one, video of that coming up.
Last year was pretty dire for photographs, filming, getting out on my bike much and mostly due to the weather and partly because I was spending a lot of time and money helping someone close to me, see my corruption blog on that one.
So I am short several tools.
Towards the end of last year and around the autumn time my trusty Sony Cybershot DSC-HX300 with its 50x zoom lens took a tumble or five. Off a contraption attached to my belt because something came undone on the bottom of the camera. A small brass nipple if you must know.
At first I was relieved because a few quick tests and the camera was working fine. Unfortunately the next few times I went out where I did long shots or filming, of birds mostly, and I noticed lesser quality in the photos and vibration on filming.
Oops!
Anyway, just prior to purchasing the new camera I did get out with the Sony and did capture a few things.
Holly Blue Butterflies, Brimstone Butterflies, an Orange Tip Butterfly and some Wild Primroses ...
I finally have a video of a Greater Spotted Woodpecker, Dendrocopus major, hammering!
I have hoped for several years I would get to film this!
A shame then that I get it when my camera is now faulty and six months overdue getting a replacement. A replacement that I hope I will acquire in around two weeks time?!
