A brand new addittion to the blog today……. sound! Not just sound but a recording of a Pippistrelle Bat this evening on my brand new Bat Detector. We have had bats for as long as I can remember and as its my birthday tomorrow my family bought me a Magenta bat Detector. These little gadgets convert high frequency sounds made by bats into lower frequencies that are audible to humans. I am sure its a bit more complicated than that but roughly speaking thats what happens. It was quite a thrill at dusk to stand in the garden and hear the bats fir the first time in my life. Then by comparing previously recorded sounds on the net I am able to narrow it down to a particular species. As well as just the sound the Pipistrelle is the most likely bat to have in a suburban garden environment. My occupation is Audio Recording so with the software and equipment that I already own it was a simple matter to include it here. So watch or should I say listen to this space! Just click on the black box here and it will play. I will take the recorder and detector out onto the River and Canal so that we can have a listen to some other species to make a good comparison
http://www.flickr.com/apps/video/stewart.swf?v=55430

In addition this evening the weather cleared for an hour at dusk so I went out onto the marsh and took this photo of a Green Sandpiper. Apparently there are Wood Sandpiper present as well. I met the warden who confirmed that this was a Green but I am sure if the Wood sticks around I will be able to post some photos of that. This Green Sandpiper was one of three tonight. I first saw them on Saturday evening but didn’t manage a good enough photo. I guessed that they were not Common Sandpiper but wasn’t absolutely sure to be honest. Tonight the light was fading but this bird did come out into the open for a while but with just a bit of sun this could have been such a good shot. It was very interesting in flight , very dark and almost arrow like with a contrasting white underside. The camo clothing did it’s stuff as I am sure that this bird had no idea that I was near by.