David Bradley – Page 14

The Winter Moth – Operophtera brumata

This unassuming little moth has a suitably unassuming little name. It is known as the Winter Moth. It is one of the geometers, or what is referred to as inchworms in North America, because the larvae seem to measure out the earth as they move inch by inch.

The Winter Moth is not to be confused with the November nor the December Moth. It flies at the opposite end of the season to most other moths – October to December and sometimes into January and even February. It is unlikely to ever cross paths with the Spring Usher, the May or July Highflyers although it may well overlap with the Autumnal Moth and perhaps even the Autumnal Rustic, and definitely the aforementioned November and December.

While its common name is rather unassuming and perhaps obvious given the season in which it the males are on the wing (the females are flightless), this belies a resilience and a resistance to the cold that many other creatures do not display. Indeed, while some warm-blooded mammals from hedgehogs to bears will seek out shelter and hide themselves away from the ice and snow during hibernation, this little creature is searching for a mate. Incidentally, the females simply crawl up tree trunks and exude sex pheromones to draw the attention of amorous males.

The females then lay a couple of hundred eggs in crevices in the bark of trees. The larvae don’t emerge until the spring when the daytime temperature reaches about 10 degrees Celsius. Historically, this would have been perfect timing for the larvae to feed on the newly opening leaf buds of their host trees. But, with climate change, that temperature is consistently reached several days before those tasty leaf buds have begun to appear. As such, many larvae that emerge when the temperature rises and the leaf buds have not yet opened simply starve. Evolution, however, has a way. There is evidence that some larvae that incidentally hatch later, when it’s warmer still, can feast on leaf buds. As such, they survive to mate as adults in the winter and so pass on their genes. Among those genes will, of course, be the ones that trigger them to emerge when the temperature is a little higher and so coincide with the opening leaf buds.

The moth’s scientific name is Operophtera brumata, the brumata meaning “short” and alluding to the length of the days at this time of year. I am not 100% certain of the etymology of the first part of the name, the genus Operophtera. Opero could mean I work and the second half could be “to destroy” from the Greek, or it could be a tweak on “wing”, which can be ptera or phtera, I believe. So, it could mean “I work to destroy” or “I work my wings”. Given that the larvae can ravage a small tree’s foliage leading to a halving of the tree’s growth that year, perhaps “I work to destroy” is apt.

I’ve recorded Winter moth since I began nothing, but not every year and only one specimen per season – 2018, then 2021, 2022, and now 2023.

For US readers, the closest relative is the Bruce Spanworm, Operophtera bruceata.

Nudist Snow Buntings

At this time of year, you might spot Snow Buntings pecking about the shingle and driftwood on a remote windswept beach, perhaps in north Norfolk or Dorset. One Studland birder tweeted earlier that this species has now reached their shores.

The birds are apparently on the beach edge just north of the nudist beach…

The twitter birder was at pains to point out to anyone who fancies seeing these birds that the nudist track is a “Wellies only track”.

It’s worth adding that there’s also at least one nudist beach where you might see Snow Bunts in north Norfolk. I have no idea whether Wellies are allowed there or not…but it’s less than 10 degrees Celsius up there and taking wind chill into account, I’m sure the local “club” won’t mind you carrying a muff, just in case it gets too nippy.

Emulating Alex Lifeson’s Rush guitar tone

Back in the day, I ran a series of Classic Chords for Lifeson, Hendrix, The Manics, Oasis, and many others. I attempted to emulate the various guitars of the artists highlighted so I could demo the chords more authentically. Anyway, with the advent of large language models, such as ChatGPT, there is now the option to utilise their training to find a better way to describe how to get a particular guitar tone.

I asked ChatGPT to explain how I could emulate the guitar tone Alex Lifeson uses on one of my favourite Rush song’s Freewill, from their 1980 album Permanent Waves. That was the first tour on which I saw the band live so it holds a special place for me.

Here’s the specific prompt I used to get it to describe how I might emulate the tone:

You are to act as an expert in VST plugins for music mixing including Guitar Rig. Analyse the Rush song Freewill and tell me how to set up Guitar Rig to emulate the guitar tone used by the band’s guitarist Alex Lifeson in that song. You should provide all details in terms of amp model I should use, and the amp head, reverb, EQ, chorus, and any other effects.

This is what it came back with:

In “Freewill,” Alex Lifeson’s guitar tone is characterized by a crisp, clean sound with a touch of chorus and reverb. To get started with Guitar Rig, you’ll want to follow these steps:

Amp Model: For this tone, you should look for a clean amp model with some headroom. Lifeson is known for using a mix of clean and slightly driven tones. In Guitar Rig, consider using the “Tweedman” or “Citrus” amp models. Both offer a good clean base tone.
Amp Head and Cabinet: Pair your chosen amp model with a suitable cabinet simulation. Lifeson often used Marshall and Hughes & Kettner amps, so you could select a corresponding cabinet in Guitar Rig. The “Jazz 120” or “British Double” cabinets are good options.
Reverb: Add a touch of reverb to give your guitar sound space and depth. Lifeson’s tone usually has a subtle reverb. In Guitar Rig, you can use the “Guitar Rig Pro Reverb” effect or experiment with other reverb presets.
Chorus: Lifeson occasionally used chorus to thicken his tone. Add a gentle chorus effect to your signal chain. In Guitar Rig, try the “Chorus & Flanger” module or “Vintage Chorus” to dial in the right amount.
EQ: Lifeson’s tone is well-balanced, so consider using a parametric EQ to make subtle adjustments. Boost the mids slightly and cut or boost the treble and bass as needed. Keep the adjustments modest to maintain clarity.
Noise Gate: Use a noise gate to reduce unwanted noise, especially if you’re using any drive or distortion. Set it to a threshold where it only engages when you’re not playing.
Compression: While not always present, a light compression can help even out your dynamics. Use the “Studio Compressor” in Guitar Rig or a similar plugin.
Guitar: It’s worth mentioning that the guitar you use plays a significant role in achieving this tone. Alex Lifeson used a variety of guitars, but for “Freewill,” he used his famous, white Gibson ES-355. These semi-hollow body guitars contributed to his signature sound.

Remember that tweaking these settings will be necessary to get your tone as close as possible. Alex Lifeson’s tone evolved over the years, so it may also vary slightly from live performances to studio recordings. Use your ears as your best guide and make subtle adjustments until you achieve the desired result.

Some Sciencebase readers reached this page searching for “Alex Lifeson headrush rig”. Headrush is a FX pedalboard brand from inMusic Brands.

Deathcap mushrooms – Amanita phalloides

What makes the death cap fungus (toadstool or mushroom), Amanita phalloides, so poisonous?

Well, the primary toxin present in this fungus is alpha-amanitin. This chemical goes by the following systematic name, although you’re unlikely to see it spelled out in full in the news about the ongoing murder trial that’s in the Australian news at the moment:

2-[(1R,4S,8R,10S,13S,16S,34S)-34-[(2S)-2-Butanyl]-13-[(2R,3R)-3,4-dihydroxy-2-butanyl]-8,22-dihydroxy-27-oxido-2,5,11,14,30,33,36,39-octaoxo-27-thia-3,6,12,15,25,29,32,35,38-nonaazapentacyclo[14.12.11 .0^6,10.0^18,26.0^19,24]nonatriaconta-18(26),19,21,23-tetraen-4-yl]acetamide.

The same toxin is also found in the Destroying Angel fungus, Amanita virosa.

The chemical is essentially a ring of eight amino acids. This structure fits easily into the active site of two enzymes, RNA polymerase II and III and blocks their activity in the body leading to liver and kidney failure. When ingested the toxin ultimately binds to the enzyme and kills liver cells, but symptoms often don’t appear for at least ten hours, sometimes a day. This period of time is way past the point at which stomach pumping to remove the fungus would help.

Diarrhoea and stomach cramps are the first symptoms. These subside after a day or so and gives the poisoned a false remission. By day four or five, the toxin starts to have severe effects on the liver and kidneys, leading to total system failure in both, coma and death ensue within a week.

A November, or a Pale November, or an Autumnal Moth! Who knows?

This is a November Moth…or a Pale November Moth…or maybe an Autumnal Moth…it’s definitely one of the Epirrita species of moth, but I, and almost nobody else could tell you for sure which from this photo.

One of the British Epirrita species of moth — One of three possible moths, so we record it as Epirrita agg (aggregate)

But, it’s is one of those moths that could be any of several different species. You cannot know for sure unless you’ve raised it from larvae and know for sure what species you had, or you’ve done DNA testing but that assumes someone has the genomics for the various species, or you’ve done what lepidopterists call “gen det”.

Gen det, genital determination is where you dissect the male moth’s genitalia. Moth genitalia are markedly different even between otherwise very similar species and so you can identify which species you have from the bits you chopped up.

I am not going there.

So, my records simply say Epirrita agg, meaning an aggregate of all the possible species in the UK and no positive ID for any of them in particular.

There is, however, another British Epirrita species, the Small Autumnal Moth, which as the name would suggest, accurately for once in taxonomy, is actually smaller than the others and its wings markings are stronger. If you have one of those, you can assume you’d be able to distinguish it from the other three Epirrita species.

Moustached Reedlings – Bearded Tits

The Bearded Reedling, Panurus biarmicus, is the only known avian species in its genus. It was originally named the Bearded Tit because of its superficial resemblance to the Long-tailed Tit perhaps, but it is definitely not closely related to that bird nor any other tit.

Female Bearded Reedlings lack the "beard of the males — Female Bearded Reedlings lack the “beard of the males

The odd thing though is that the “bearded” part of its name refers to the facial markings of the males. They have long, droopy-looking black patches either side of their bills, whimsically resembling male facial hair but perhaps sideburns or moustaches rather than a beard. I’ve no idea why it wasn’t originally called the Moustached Tit. Either way, it’s not political correctness that is morphing the tit into the reedling it’s simply that it isn’t a tit, as mentioned.

Male Bearded Reedlings showing his "beard", which looks more like sideburns or a pair of moustaches — Male Bearded Reedlings showing his “beard”, which looks more like sideburns or a pair of moustaches

The species is sexually dimorphic, the “clean-shaven” females lack the sideburns/moustaches/beard as well as differing in size and other aspects of their plumage. They’re often quite shy and tend not to show well when it’s windy. That said, you can commonly catch small groups and sometimes larger flocks darting back and forth making their characteristic “pinging”, or “pew-pewing” contact call as the fly. When they settle on a reed, they often shuffle from a lower portion up to the top of the stem. On other occasions, they will dance about the lower parts of the reeds almost at water level.

The Sciencebase musical Top Ten

The current Top Ten of my songs streamed from my BandCamp page

1 Ticking Clocks
2 No Footprints in the Sand
3 Easy come, easy go
4 Festival Friends (Cool as Folk)
5 No symphony for lovers
6 What we have become
7 The people we could be
8 Ebb and Flow
9 Dustbowl
10 Tideline

Ticking Clocks – A sort of sequel to “She’s Leaving Home”

No Footprints in the Sand – When there’s nobody on the beach

Easy come, easy go – Argument for argument’s sake, laid-back funk rock

Festival Friends (Cool as Folk) – Acoustic, fingerstyle instrumental

No symphony for lovers – The Synaesthesia Blues in a Paul Weller style

What we have become – Live studio, singer-songwriter melancholy

The people we could be – Songwriter reminiscences

Ebb and Flow – Singer-songwriter tidal musings

Dustbowl – A nice big slice of Americana

Tideline – Still a Northern Soul at heart

Interesting that the majority of the streams this month have been for the more melancholic singer-songwriter acoustic stuff. I do have quite an eclectic mix of styles across the last decade of recording and musical collaborations. Ten albums worth of my music. And, a triple-album collection of earlier songs here.

Audio birding

During the original covid lockdown in March-April of 2020, you may recall that I mentioned an activity known as noc migging. Essentially, it’s birding at night with a microphone and a sound recording device. You record the sounds of birds passing overhead, many birds migrate at night, and then process the recording to pluck out the sounds of our feathered friends for identification. Oh, by the way, here’s my garden birding tick list.

You can do the ID by ear or you can use software that analyses the sonogram and selects out the bird calls from the background noise of foxes and deer, motorbikes, cars, and other sounds of the night, and then passes it to ID software. Cornell University’s widely available birding app, Merlin, is a very useful introduction to NocMig and Audio Birding, in general.

Of course, there’s an app that can do the recording and the ID all-in-one, and has been for some time: the Merlin app from, Cornell University. Commonly, it’s used by birders and others when they hear a tweet or a chirp when they’re out and about to give them an ID for a sight unseen. The app records and analyses the avian sounds and gives you an ID for the species you’re hearing, usually within a split second. Actually, all that said, you can feed the app bird photos too, for a visual ID.

I’ve used Merlin sporadically for that purpose for quite some time. But, hearing lots of bird activity in the garden a few days ago I set my phone up with the app running, to hear what was around, even though I could ID most of them, hahah!

I wasn’t surprised by the majority of the IDs that popped up as I could hear the likes of Blackbird, Robin, Starling, Chaffinch, Dunnock, Carrion Crow, Goldfinch, Wren, Great Tit, Blue Tit, Long-tailed Tit, Collared Dove, Wood Pigeon, House Sparrow, Rook, Jackdaw, Pied Wagtail, and Magpie and identify them myself.

There were a few more obscure species that it identified that were a little surprising, Goldcrest, for instance. We have had that species in the garden before and I usually recognise their call but hadn’t noticed them toing and froing in our garden lately. The app also picked up a Redwing, one of the winter thrushes, which is likely to be arriving in our area at this time of year and was presumably flying overhead although I didn’t see it. There was an ID that the app labelled as uncertain – Brambling. I didn’t hear it, but it is nice to imagine that this species might be nearby. It also picked up Ringed Plover. Another I didn’t hear, but interesting to note.

Early morning of Sunday 29th October the app had red dots next to two birds it thinks it picked up – Raven and Barn Owl. Ravens are not commonly seen around here and while Barns Owls are not rare 7:30am over our house seems odd, but who knows? Spotted Flycatcher and Wood Warbler here, at the end of October? Almost certainly not.

snettisham ringed plover e1530550793560 — Ringed Plover

I later fired up the app on a walk close to one of our local ponds and picked up a perhaps unsurprising Reed Bunting, confirming that I had indeed heard it. After dark that day I was also able to use the app to confirm a solitary Tawny Owl calling from a tree in a neighbour’s garden. Mrs Sciencebase recorded Greenfinch and Bullfinch as well as some others mentioned above on her expedition with friends. We’ve also now had Grey Wagtail over the house.

The app is yet to suggest an ID for anything that would be very unlikely around here. So, I’m taking it on trust that it’s giving me accurate data. The common birds above are definitely seen and heard in this area. The likes of Redwing and Brambling too. We’ve had Redwing in our garden in past winters, although not yet Brambling, just yet…

You can see my complete garden tick list for birds spotted and heard here.

UPDATE: Morning of 30th October 2023. I set up a studio condenser microphone and directed it to record from my office window. I recorded twenty minutes of sound from the mic, saved the file, and fed it to Merlin. It came back with some spurious IDs like Spotless Starling (Mediterranean bird), Verdin (a new world penduline tit), a laughingthrush (Asian/Indian species), Eastern Towhee, a New World sparrow, reported once or twice only on Shetland . But, there were a couple of species that we are likely to have locally that hadn’t been picked up when I was running Merlin with my phone’s mic on previous sessions: Fieldfare (one of our winter thrush visitors along with Redwing), Blackcap (presumably a wintering arrival from east Europe), Song Thrush (relatively common around here).

UPDATE: 30th October 2023 – RSPB Ouse Fen (Over) app and us picked up Bearded Reedling (formerly known as a Bearded Tit), which we saw a dozen of, Cetti’s Warbler (3-4x), Skylark, Meadow Pipit (half a dozen), Crossbill (possibly, we didn’t hear it though). 11th November: Common Redpoll, Siskin, very unlikely Hawfinch.

My good friend Keith W, a steel industry professional, responded to my social media post about audio birding. He reminisced about how, as a youngster, he used to set up his Pifco cassette recorder on the garage roof at home and head off to school. He would come home to find that the big cylinder batteries were completely run down in the recorder, but he’d have a tape full of bird calls and birdsong. He would then listen to the tape and compare what he heard with the recording on an LP of birdsong.

Mineral Moon

Processing a RAW photo of the moon to enhance the subtle hues of different areas of the surface needs to be done in stages for best effect. The yellows and blues reveal areas on the surface made up of different minerals, which scatter the incident sunlight to different degrees.

A quick glance at the moon in the night sky and you might imagine the surface is fifty shades of grey. But, take a photo, preferably with a telescope or a big zoom lens and you can process the image to bring out the colours in the surface. These colours essentially represent different regions of minerals scattering sunlight in different ways. So with just the right kind of enhancement you can create a geological map of the moon.

I’d heard about this technique some time ago, but hadn’t given it much thought since. But, the moon was lovely and bright last night, waxing gibbous, not full, and I got a quick snap at 600mm on a 2/3 frame mirrorless camera.

The chemicals on the surface of the moon’s seas, the maria (first %), and its highlands (second %)

Silica 45.4%; highlands 45.5%
Alumina 14.9%; 24.0%
Lime 11.8%; 15.9%
Ferrous oxide* 14.1%; 5.9%
Magnesia 9.2% 7.5%
Titanium dioxide 3.9%; 0.6%
Sodium oxide 0.6%; 0.6%

Here’s the RAW shot, unprocessed and loaded into my photo editor. Obviously, I’d messed up, it’s massively underexposed.

So, I re-opened the RAW file out of the camera in DxO PureRaw to apply some initial denoising and let it do some automated camera adjustment based on my lens and camera.

Well, that’s a bit better, but I could perhaps adjust exposure in the photo editor’s own RAW import function and brighten it up properly. The highest exposure compensation is +3.0 in the software and it’s basically done some of the work, but still not enough.

So, I needed to do some basic levels adjustments to get it to this state and you can already see some of those mineral colours showing more than you would see with the naked eye or even through your telescope.

Now, before doing any more, it’s worth applying the photo editor’s automatic colour fix to correct white balance and other potential problems.

Now, to bring out the colours. It would be possible to simply whack up the saturation, but if you do that you get a noisy and solarized (ironically) mess. Although it’s worth trying that, say increasing saturation by 80%, just to see what it looks like. It does show the variations in surface colour that your camera picks up, but like I say it’s an over-the-top result.

So, I reverted that and went to the “layer adjustment window” in my photo editor instead. Ramping up the saturation is possible with multiple adjustment layers so that the effect can be done in a more gradual way to the same level but without losing as much information in one fell swoop as would happen with an 80% saturation boost applied. So, you apply multiple saturation adjustment layers, setting the boost to 20% or so for each, and looking to see how well it works at each step. Alternatively, in my photo editor, I can add a vibrancy adjustment stepwise. That’s what I did for the following image, which had five vibrancy layers of 20% each. Six was too many.

At this point, one might stop. It looks good as it is. But, I next applied a local tone mapping adjustment, which adds a bit more definition to the different coloured regions.

There’s now a need to sharpen and denoise the image again, which I will do by importing into Topaz Denoise AI and choosing some basic settings just to give the final image a bit of a visual bump and tighten things up.

I re-did the whole process using four 20% saturation adjustment layers instead of the more subtle vibrancy to get the following image. I can’t decide which I prefer the previous one or this one.

Mineral Moon – Photo processed to show up the different colours of the surface of the moon that reveal the different mineral present by how they scatter sunlight

To take it to the next level, it is worth doing a burst mode shot of the moon and then using stacking software to overlay them, this is a way to reduce noise. Noise is random in each frame and so overlaying and discarding noise succesively in the software boosts the amount of information you can see in the image and so improves clarity. Applying the above process to such a stacked shot should give you a much better final image.

It’s also worth noting that getting the exposure right in the camera from the off, using a tripod, and live view with either mirror up or in a mirrorless camera will all help improve the images you get.

*More properly known as iron(II) oxide, the lower oxidation state as opposed to ferric, iron(III) oxide more commonly found on earth and as rust.

Blocking the babebots

UPDATE: April 2024 – The babebots had gone quiet for a while. Then, in the week beginning 15th, I noticed that they had changed strategy. Instead of offering a romantic triste, they seem to have morphed into tech gurus or other kinds of expert. Still with the same glum avi photo of some young woman and a dreary shot of a random beach, and presumably a dodgy phishing site to dupe anything daft enough to click through, but it’s different. That said, they’re back with a vengeance and “liking” everything I tweet once more. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Every single thing I tweet these days gets a like from a scam account on twitter. Commonly these accounts purport to be young women seeking a partner. There is usually an attractive photo of the protagonist and a header image showing a tropical beach scene.

If one is unwitting, scrolling through the timeline will often reveal various NSFW images or perhaps just one of a woman’s chest clad in a skimpy item of clothing. Either way, I block them immediately. It seems pointless expending the effort to report them as these accounts are presumably being created automatically en masse or by some poor sap in a sweatshop.

It’s all very annoying, to be honest, and something that got worse since Leon Umsk took over. Incidentally, I am far more active on other social media these days, but am keeping my Twitter account active despite the challenges while I encourage genuine followers to track me down on Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky etc.

I’ve been keeping a list of some of the bio lines from these scam accounts, which I refer to as babebots. Most of the bios are rather mundane, some of them are vaguely intriguing, others are nonsensical. I’m not entirely sure why someone would want a relationship where “sparks will fly”, the bot presumably means something else. Not entirely sure where a “coffee date” sits on the spectrum of “adventures” either. A lot of them are very much old-school “lonely hearts column” enticements too…which is odd…I wonder whether an AI was trained on a corpus of such columns to generate these scammer bios. One describes herself as a “sun-kissed girl”, it’s usually beaches that are sun-kissed isn’t it?

Worth mentioning that while many of these babebots are “called” Britney67584 and Stephanie99333, a large number of them use IDs that have traditionally male-sounding names. I’ve had a lot of likes recently from accounts called Greg, Mike, and Matthew, for instance.

It’s all very odd, especially to think that some people must be suckered into clicking the scam links!

Here are a few of the recent ones:

Looking for someone to share my laughter and my tears with!

Actress looking for her leading man.

Looking for a partner who’s ready to create a love story that’s just as beautiful as we are.

Fitness lover seeking a workout partner and adventure companion.

Surfing enthusiast seeking a fellow wave rider and ocean lover. Sparks will fly!

hej ! SuperRare whitney want a 40553 followers

Sci-fi nerd seeking someone to explore the universe with.

Hot girls from your city

Naughty babes want to play

Let’s watch sunsets together Blast off to romance in my bio link!

Homebody seeking a partner to snuggle and relax with.

Night owl looking for someone to stay up with Don’t miss your chance! Click bio!

Life is better when shared with someone special. Click my bio link for love!

Fun-loving girl searching for her perfect match. Are you the one Find love in my bio link!

Sweet and sassy, looking for a kind-hearted partner

Fun, fearless, and ready to find my match! Let’s dance into each other’s hearts.

Seeking a bookworm for cozy nights in

Yoga lover seeking a zen partner See what you’re missing!

Dancing queen ready to find her king

Music-loving girl seeking soulful connection. Let’s make beautiful melodies together.

Junk food lover seeking someone to indulge in guilty pleasures with.

Environmentalist seeking a partner who cares about the planet and sustainability!

Let’s bask in the warmth of each other’s company.

Artistic Beauty Seeking Someone to Create a Masterpiece With Ready for a new fling?

Adventurous girl seeking a partner who loves to paddle and surf!

Passionate and fiery looking for someone to ignite my soul! Blast off to romance in my bio link!

Adventurer seeking a partner for sunny days, beach trips, and coffee dates.

Love the beach, the mountains, and everything in between

Searching for a connection that is both deep and fun.

Seeking a fast-food lover for late-night cravings

Bookworm seeking someone to read between the lines with

Horse lover seeking someone to ride with!

Champagne lover seeking someone to celebrate life with

Fun-loving girl seeking a confident and spontaneous match. Meet your new crush!

Hoping to find a rainbow connection with my soulmate

Ready to paddle through life with someone special

Sun-kissed girl seeking someone to share lazy summer days with

Gamer girl seeking someone to level up with

What can I do for you?

There are so many more. Oh, by the way, they usually have names like Delilah and Piper and the account handle will be something like Madeleine46574844. Easy to spot. The first few dozen didn’t even have a bio, just a scam link, the beach shot, and an NSFW photo in the timeline.

I suspect that they’re all auto-generated somehow and follow one of three profile patterns, and that might suggest that either there are three recipes out there are actually just three sources. Or one source using three recipes to create the accounts. It should be relatively easy to block signups, but I don’t think Leon Umsk gives a flying fart. He’s ruined twitter. I’m never going to refer to it by the name he gave it.