Beautiful new Moon joins Venus at twilight

Tonight the thin sliver of the New Moon was just below the planet Venus at sunset. To make an even more spectacular grouping, the bright stars Aldebaran and Capella were nearby. Changing the exposure and cropping in, the rest of the Moon (illuminated by earthshine) was a terrific sight. You can also see some of the bright stars of the loose cluster, the Hyades. Worth a look tomorrow!

Marine reef tank: update!

As you may recall, twenty years or so ago Linda and I were at the forefront of marine reefkeeping here in the UK: little was known about the water parameters necessary to keep corals alive and it was very much trial and error. We eventually graduated to an enormous 6' x 3' x 2' tank, our thinking being that a large volume of water would be less susceptible to rapid changes in pH, temperature, salinity, nitrate level and so on.

We did pretty well with this set up, but the  three protein skimmers, two huge Tunze filtration units, reef surge pumps (that replicated the rise and fall of the tide and changing currents across a natural reef) and a lighting hood packed with UV and fluorescent tubes, generated massive electricity bills! Also, despite all the filters and scrubbers, we still needed to carry out a 10L water change every week or so. You can't use tap water - it contains far too many chemicals that are toxic to all coral species - so this meant regular trips to Attleborough to buy drums of Reverse Osmosis water. To this we added carefully-formulated salts to replicate natural seawater. This all came to an end after I had some pretty serious surgery that meant I couldn't lift anything heavier than a cup of tea for almost a year! We regretfully gave everything away...

A couple of years ago we came across the excellent Taverham Garden Centre aquatics department. We discovered that things have moved on in twenty years, and that it was possible to buy a  30L 'Nanosystem', complete with heaters, lights, protein skimmer and filtration: we thought we'd give it a go! The results (after more trial and error and a few 'tweaks' of our own!) can be seen here! We still have to carry out weekly water changes, but the current regulations allow us to 'buy & collect' the necessary RO water.

Church survey and patch walk: first lockdown Damselfly (And an ironic Meadow Pipit!)

Today was the biannial biodiversity survey of the Church: naturally this couldn't be the public event that we normally help with, but Linda and I spent a while checking on the flowering plants, insects and birds before walking up the hill for our permitted exercise.

Holly Blues, Orange Tips and Small Torts were everywhere and we added Small White, Green-veined White and Comma to the list, as well as our first odonatid of the year: predictably, this was a Large Red Damselfly.

A bit late in the day for birds to be singing, but we came across four Lesser Whitethroats as well as all the usuals. In the morning I had to whizz across to Taverham to pick up some reverse osmosis water for our marine tank: this is an approved essential journey, of course. On the way I saw two Meadow Pipits along the NDR!

Lockdown butterflies

Is it just me, or are butterflies a bit thin on the ground so far this year? Despite all the extra walking and hours spent in the garden, the number of species and individuals seems low for the end of April...

Brimstone
Orange-tip
Small Tortoiseshell
Peacock
Green-veined White
Holly Blue

Thursday walk: two new 'lockdown ticks'!

This lockdown listing is a bit like 24-hour bird racing:

1) A new bird is exciting, whether it's a Kestrel or a White-tailed Eagle
2) You sort of feel you're doing well if you get both the Whitethroats

Well I didn't see any Eagles today, but I did get the two Whitethroats, both on the bridle way from the Church to South Walsham Fen. In fact, I heard three Lesser Whitethroats: more than I recall from the Heath in twenty years. Lots of Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs, and Willow Warblers have begun to dribble in, with two new arrivals noted today.

An amusing occurrence: as I was halfway down the bridle way I heard the unmistakable sound of a calling Green Woodpecker. I searched the dense foliage and saw... a Great Spotted Woodpecker! I thought to myself "I never knew Great Spots did that!" and then a Green Woodpecker flew off from the same branch!

Still no Meadow Pipit!

Wednesday walk: all the Warblers!

Today, having topped up the hedgehog food and water bowls, Linda and I carried on walking to a belt of nearby woodland, nestling among set-aside and arable crops. Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs were everywhere, and I managed to photograph the first Willow Warbler of the year (typically high in a tree!) Other birds included Marsh Harrier, Kestrel and the usual hedgerow species, while Garden Warbler was new for the year (and lockdown list!)

More Starlink satellites and an exploding fireball

Although the main cluster of Starlink space junk passed over while the sky was still quite bright, I managed a few decent images. Later on I crawled out of bed at just after 1.00 am, spending half an hour looking for Lyrid meteors: I failed to see any. However, I thought I'd do a timed exposure of the region to the east of Cassiopeia (the 'W' shaped constellation!) to see if I could capture the Andromeda galaxy, M31. I didn't, but at around 1.10 I saw an amazing greenish exploding fireball.