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Black Celebration

Halloween was a bust. We bought this much candy: 

 
I even turned into a zombie: 

 
But we got almost no kids! 

However all was not lost, since I bought a black light! Much fun has been had looking around the house under UV light. Here’s a selection of example photos:

  
The most notable item on our fridge is our glow-in-the-dark Baby Jesus (upper right). This is hardly surprising, since it’s made of a material designed to fluoresce. 

 
An almost forgotten wall sticker hidden behind a door reveals a dramatic (and appropriate) surprise under UV light! 

 
The sticker wall on a bookshelf, showing not all whites are the same when blacked! 

 
Check out that Gundam plastic runner on the table. This isn’t even one of the UV sensitive Gundam kits ๐Ÿ™‚ 

 
Keimi the mermaid (from One Piece) has a secret! Speaking of figurines… 

 
Power Girl looks very different doesn’t she?

For an item that cost me a tenner at Wal-Mart (and is already breaking) this is a lot of fun! 

 
Happy Halloween ๐Ÿ˜‰

Wildlife XII: A New Hope

This is the year that the wildlife camera just keeps on delivering. I just chuck it any old place in the backyard and it brings me back photo after photo of the menagerie that calls our backyard home. Here’s the latest batch:

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“Excuse me sir, do you have permission to photograph me?”

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“Ok partner I’m covering the camera you’re now safe to raid the bird feeder on the patio!”

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“I think I just heard the sound of a camera shutter?”

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“If we combine our powers maybe we can get into the house!”

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“I believe I can fly!”

As usual, the creepy night-time shots are my favourites. One of these day’s I’ll get Slenderman on one of these…

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That’s ‘the deer family’ that lives in our neighborhood. Of course there are many deer living here, but we always see this mom and baby around our house (including wobbling fawns when they were very young!). I guess the trees in our backyard are on their dinner tables.

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See his antlers? This is a much rarer sight, and the few times I’ve seen male deer with antlers during the day they have always been distance or skittish. I like the idea one of them was wandering around our backyard.

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OMG! That has to be one of the best shots yet, a raccoon selfie! Isn’t he adorable ๐Ÿ™‚

Still no foxes, moles or chipmunks. The search continues…

Wildlife Camera (Part 10)

It’s been a while, but once again it’s time for some snaps from our backyard wildlife camera! I dusted it off a couple of weeks ago and put it out on the back patio facing away from the house on an angle. Here’s the first shot on it:

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If you think that’s me carefully placing a feeder in shot to attract animals… well I’m guilty as charged!

There were about 90 shots on the camera, about 45%ย  of which were like this…

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…and another 45% like this…

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Yes that’s me mowing!

The other 10% were very interesting though. Let’s get the squirrel shots out of the way first:

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We saw chipmunks (and birds) eating from the feeder as well, but apparently they are too small or fact to trigger the shutter so there were no photos of them.

However it seems the feeder wasn’t just popular with the squirrels and chipmunks. Here’s the night photos (click on them to enlarge):

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Strangely I don’t think this is the cat we usually see in our yard. I bet Yossie and Emi know all about this visitor ๐Ÿ™‚

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That’s a deer, hiding behind the first bowl (which is full of dead branches yes I know and I will clean it up soon!)

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That one is a real mystery. It’s small and sleek and probably dark-furred. Could it be a rat? I think it’s too big for a mole (which we have seen in our backyard before). Any ideas?

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A possum! And the first clear shot I’ve got of one on our camera! I wonder where he lives?

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Another first: a skunk! A little one as well, probably a baby. This is not surprising to us, since we’ve seen skunks in our yard before (even a mother and two babies a couple of years ago), but this is the first time I’ve caught one on the feeder.

These night shots surprised me because of the variety and because in every case there was only one of each animal. There were however a few shots with no visible animal and I wonder if there were things lurking in the dark beyond the range of the sensor that had triggered it. I fiddled with contrast on some of them to explore with no luck. Perhaps it was just the wind?

I love using this camera and the excitement of looking at the photos. I’ll be putting it out again this time for a month or so ๐Ÿ™‚