Common Frog

I was strimming the front "lawn" when I disturbed a frog. I took some photos and tried to identify it on the internet. This wasn't hard as it happens as we only have one native frog in the UK.

Spitfire

When I got home from work there was an aircraft flying around, doing quite a few large circles over the area. It sounded like a Spitfire, it looked like a Spitfire with the invasion stripes and 5 blade propeller, but I'm not 100% sure. I can't think why it would be flying round here.

Caterpillar

Yesterday evening I spotted this caterpillar on my Silver Birch. It wasn't moving and I wondered if that thing on its back was some other creature that was burrowing in or out. I didn't hold out much hope of finding out what it was - try searching for caterpillars - but there it was and confirmed by other sites. It's the caterpillar of the grey Dagger Moth, a boring looking insect that flies at night but pollinates flowers. As there's only one caterpillar I will be leaving it alone.

More butterflies

It's a lovely day for a change so I did a bit of gardening and was pleasantly surprised to see some butterflies drinking nectar at the marigolds. It's something I've never watched before but I could see the proboscis uncurled and placed in the flower and then the butterfly would lean forward getting down deep. Both types I saw today fed at both the African and French Marigolds.

A male Large White.

A Small Tortoiseshell - kinda looked old.

Another Tortoiseshell - this one looked much brighter.

International Space Station

The International Space Station (ISS) can often be seen in our skies. It orbits the Earth roughly every hour and a half, but the Earth is spinning underneath it so it will only be above the horizon about 4 times per day. But to be visible it also has to be out of the Earth's shadow that is caused by the Sun and this usually means one viewing per day, sometimes two, for a few days and then a week or so without any sightings.

The Heavens Above website gives details of when you can see the ISS - I'm pretty sure it is always after sunset or before sunrise. All you need is your location - and Google Maps can give that very accurately, especially as you can centre the map on your garden. As I type (11th September) the ISS will be visible tomorrow (twice) and the next two days early in the morning and then on the 20th around 8:54. The length of time is very variable; on the 14th it's just 12 seconds, this morning it was nearly 4 minutes.

It looks like a very bright star moving about the speed of an aircraft. On 10th February it was due to appear, and being a Sunday I was at my mum's, so I tookmy telescope mount and camera and took a 30 second exposure of the area I knew the ISS would pass through. I took the telescope mount as that is motor driven so the stars wouldn't streak. Unfortunately I didn't get a good focus on the stars - but they haven't streaked. The bright line is the ISS as it passed across the field of view from right to left.

The brightest star is Aldeberan, an orange star (this was taken black and white) and one of the brightest in the sky. The V of stars to the right and above is the Hyades open cluster, which is also easy to see in winter. Many of the stars you can see in the photo wouldn't be visible to the naked eye.

Also on 10th February was an Iridium Flare. These are caused by sunlight reflecting off the antannae of these small telecommunication satellites. There are 66 Iridium satellites in orbit and the short, roughly 2 seconds, flares are easy to predict - and these are also on the Heavens Above website. Some can even be seen in daylight. As an example there are two tomorrow evening, one at 20:57 and as bright as Venus (3rd brightest natural object in out sky after the Sum and Moon) and another as 22:23 almost as bright as Sirius (brightest star). However if I was to drive 10 km to the west for the first or 50 km for the second then these would be over 4 times as bright as Venus.

Rain

It's rained a lot recently and not being able to do much outside, decided to take some photos. I never used to mind the rain: it kept the yobbos off the streets but it makes working on the garden impossible and also keeps the birds away. The last photo is of the birds' bath/drinking water, not that I've ever seen one taking a bath.