Hi Nic
Good to hear that about spines regrowing, just as well for Siili. Fantastic you have Igel who’s having the sense maybe to wait til she’s a bit older before getting involved with men!
I’ve often thought the same re hogs being around all this time complete with the possible hazards from various natural foods they eat. Maybe it’s a human thing to try & cure everything, also at one time we weren’t here to be the worst hazard of all to animals in general so their numbers would be greater & kept down by nature. We’ve probably removed virtually all their natural food sources by developing land to suit us so they’re having to concentrate on a reduced choice of foodstuffs anyway.
A Wood Pigeon just had a mini bath! Need to refill now.
I feel the same about the ratlets, it would worry me a lot!
Rather hope frog reappears, always amazes me the inhospitable places they sometimes live, surrounded by nothing you think a frog would want to be near as long as there’s a source of water. Survivors again as there are few places with ponds or anything approaching them unless you’re further from so called civilisation.
Late last night as it got dark I sat by the back door to watch the garden for a bit & a largish hog appeared setting off the new motion sensor lights in the border. She spent a long time drinking water from the large bird bath, wandered out of sight again then returned to drink for some time. I moved Frankie’s old kennel while the builders were here & had stuffed all the bedding from both kennels, including the green recycling bag that was under his soft cat bed into the one kennel. Yesterday I moved it to the border near the back door under a shrub meaning to take out the jumbled bedding etc & tidy it up for someone to use out there & I noticed the blankets were sticking out as if they’d been pulled by someone. My first thoughts were one of the cats, then I thought of hogs…. I gently put the blanket up a bit so it wasn’t dangling everywhere & left it in peace. I set up the camera opposite it & have just been watching the hog going back & forth to it last night leaving a nice hog shaped hole in the centre of it all! More exciting/worrying was that on at least one of the stills you could see light from the infra red I guess reflecting on what appeared to be eyes just after she left the kennel. I think she’s nested &there are babies in there. The bedding moves a little too between one shot & the next once or twice so I think I’m going to be a granny! The responsibility is scary but so brilliant. On camera I can see she’s the one with curved stripes sprayed on her back.
How I wish I’d taken out the plastic bags at least when the builders left but she doesn’t seem to mind & is obviously fine with the arrangement. Just glad I didn’t absent mindedly yank the bedding out & deposit her & her babies on the garden yesterday.
Sun was a delight but back to the cold stuff today, just spent a half hour from 07.30 picking up rubbish round the corner, now in a Keep Wales Tidy red bag by the bin at the bus stop for the council to collect next week.
Pete the pigeon still comes most days & asks for food on the fence, took some very close up pics of him as he ignores me & just eats a few inches from my head. As long as he doesn’t bring all his relatives he’s welcome!
Had a Jay last week, don’t usually see them here, bit of a treat. Yesterday a large black bird which I thought was a huge jackdaw but surely too big. The lower wings were jet black, the face around the beak too but the rest a very light grey to almost silver. Quite a long beak, sat there for ages hoping for some food & eventually flew away. Nice to see Dunnocks amongst the Sparrows, very easy to see the difference when they’re all together in the garden. A visitor recently watching them with me thought they were all chaffinches! And was surprised when I pointed out the brown bird walking about with her wings pointing straight down like she was putting a coat on was a female blackbird. I’m always horrified at how few people seem to know even the most commonly seen birds we share the world with.
