The new Flickr interface

It may, or may not, have come to your attention that Flickr completely redesigned their website interface a few weeks ago, and changed the subscription terms as well. I gather a lot of people are very annoyed by it, especially serious photographers. For someone just browsing photos it probably works quite nicely. My statistics, gathered using statsr.net, do show a big drop off though - here's photos views for the last four years, with the final two months being post-redesign:

Anyway, here's a screenshot, click it to go and take a look for yourself and see what you think...

Mike

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EWB Imperial College students visiting the woods

It's become traditional for a group of students from Imperial College involved with the charity Engineers Without Borders to come for a camping trip in the woods each year, but this time they couldn't come in March so it ended up happening in June instead - which was probably a good thing, as it was snowing in March!

I didn't have any major building projects for them to get involved with this year, but that left time for various other activities, such as making wooden mallets and learning to use a chainsaw for logging - under careful supervision! They did give me a hand moving some logs though, which was a huge help!

There was of course plenty of time for camp fires and cooking...

Hope to see some of them again next year!

Mike

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Ashden Awards 2013!

Just come to the end of another great Ashden Awards week! If you only watch one of our winners' films from this year, make sure it's this one, from Hollybush Primary school in Derry:

There's loads more videos on the Ashden YouTube channel, and you can download copies of the films, as as well as case studies and photos, from the Ashden website.

Mike

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Greater Spotted Woodpeckers feeding their chicks

Check out this video of Greater Spotted Woodpeckers feeding their chicks in our woodland! We had heard the woodpecker hollowing out a nest in this tree some weeks ago, but hadn't seen where it was. This weekend I was in the woods preparing logs for next winter, when I heard the chicks, from about 40m away as they were making so much noise as they were being fed! You'll be able to hear them in the video. Photos follow after the video...

Here's a woodpecker approaching the nest:

And here's one of them peeking out of the nest to check it's safe to leave:

Here's a close-up of the nest hole, taken with flash to illuminate some of the interior. It's on the underside of a branch and then turns a corner, so you can't see the chicks. Apparently woodpeckers normally drill sideways into a trunk and then downwards, but I guess this pair fancied a change!

Here's the logs I was processing for the woodburner ready for next winter:

I went home with a nice trailer load!

Mike

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