The rain finally cleared away from the coast mid afternoon, and needing some fresh air we went for a bracing walk along Rottingdean beach. For a dull windy day, it was high on the success scale for bird spotting. This is the view when we arrived.
I saw an oystercatcher skim by. And there were gulls aplenty, though mainly of the Herring variety. Among them was a great black-backed gull.
A more unusual visitor was lurking at the edge of the water. This is the first heron I've seen along the beach. The gulls eventually decided that a heron was one intruder too many, and several started a minor mobbing.
The heron settled further along the beach, near where this relatively rare visitor was trying its luck in the surf.
The heron had its own ideas though, and very soon chased the curlew away.
While all this was going on, a flock (well, six) cormorants flew by.
And on the rocks, the starlings gathered as the sun began to lower in the sky.
If there's one thing starlings are renowned for, it's their flocking and sure enough they took to the skies in a typically ragged, but unbelievably well coordinated, fashion.
And throughout, the sea transmuted into gold under the changing light. Camera note: all shots taken with the Canon 40D and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens with UV filter.
There are often pheasants out in the local fields. Usually at some absurd distance that makes them nearly impossible to photograph even with a 400mm lens. So I'm not sure who was more surprised when I came across a pair early this morning. They soon scuttled off into the cover of the woods, but not before I'd taken a few quick photos. The second pheasant is in the top right of the image
Scuttling away
The one bird I can guarantee to see is a robin which dominates the prime site at the corner of the road and path. He was singing brightly again today. Robin
A jay flew past, as did a sparrowhawk (that was a 'missed opportunity' as I was putting the camera away). The goldfinches were also out in force, sitting in small clouds of insects looking for easy pickings. Goldfinch
Back home, Bold caught me out and was in garden when I went to set up the trail cam. I'm not sure whether any of this will be on camera but she was very curious to see what I'd left on the ground and spent a minute or so investigating the torch and cam. The Bold Vixen Investigates Camera note: all shots taken withthe Canon 40D. The birds were all captured with the EF 400mm f/5.6L USM lens. The vixen was photographed with the EF70-300mm 4.5-5.6 DO IS lens and Canon 430EX flash unit.
Most of my wildlife watching this weekend was from the wheel of a car (that's the one time I don't have a camera at the ready, so no photos of the buzzards or kestrels that hug the fringes of the A23). But there was a low sun over the garden when we got back today, and a greenfinch was feeding on the mousebird-feeder. Greenfinch
Overhead the gulls were circling, watching for predatory intruders. A kestrel flew by, but too far for more than a reference shot. The gulls proved better subjects as they came in to land on neighbouring rooftops. Gull
The garden is relatively quiet at the moment, though the frogs are more in evidence at the moment. I think they may be politely requesting that I clear some leaves from the surface. Frog
And a garden (well this garden) isn't complete without a fox. The Bold Vixen
The weather forecast looks promising, and with the reversion to GMT the light should be that much better early in the morning for a few weeks more. I hope it stays clear. Camera note: all shots taken with the Canon 40D. The birds were both taken with the EF 400mm f/5.6L USM lens. The frog and fox were photographed with the Sigma 105mm F2.8 EX DG macro lens and Canon 430EX flash unit.
The inconsistency of English weather is almost the only consistent thing about it. Today we had sunshine. A few gulls were noisily roof hopping along the gardens, and a sparrowhawk glided serenely overhead while I was bagging up some garden cuttings.
A squirrel was flitting back and forth along the fence, and a goldfinch rested briefly in the trees.
Later I headed out to the Downs, to the start of the Castle Hill nature reserve. A beautiful spot and one I should explore more often. The kestrels were out, hovering over the edge of the valley.
Down below, a small flock of magpies were raucously making their presence known.
While in the distance a lone pheasant was grazing the rich pickings in the fields.
The crows meanwhile were fence-post hopping.
There were sheep on the hills, and a few cattle. The herd of ponies we saw a week or so ago were still there too.
Up above, the skylarks were singing.
And the vibrant yellowhammers were busily flying from tree to tree.
All told, a perfect autumn afternoon. Camera note: all shots taken with the Canon 40D and EF 400mm f/5.6L USM lens.
Microsoft just released a patch to address the License Logging Server Heap Overflow Vulnerability (CVE-2009-2523). This vulnerability affects the License Logging Service (LLS), a feature which according to Microsoft is "designed to help customers manage licenses for Microsoft server products that ...
Here's an example of a Youtube video that is used to drive traffic to a "XBOX" phishing site.
The actual phishing site looks like this:
The URL is fairly convincing. Turns out .TP is the country code for East Timor.
But why would anybody phish for accounts of some online game ?
Because you ...
So, there are these apparent MySpace phishing e-mails going around ("... please be informed that you are required to update your MySpace account, Please update your MySpace account by clicking here... ")
When you follow the link, you end up to this MySpace look-a-like page, hosted on various .uk ...
We have located the first iPhone worm, dubbed as Ikee . It's currently spreading in the wild, but it's only able to infect devices that have been 'jailbroken' by their owners. Jailbreaking removes iPhone's protection mechanisms, allowing users to run any software they want.
Affected users will f ...
This is a blog post from our blog in May 2007:
Yesterday, three people were sentenced for writing the above malware (it's a variant of the Vanbot family ) and other attacks - including some DDoS action.
The sentences were: 45 days jail, 40 days jail and 0 days jail, respectively. The sentence ...
WIDGETIZE