Hi Nic
Great you have hogs, you must be over the moon. The last few nights have been noisy here for hours – a hedgehog huffing around the garden with a very large one in hot pursuit. Amazingly they seem to have time to eat as most food is gone & crumbs remain in the morning, sometimes you can hear long drinking sessions in the feeder between crunching at night as I leave water next to the food so they don’t have to come out for a drink. Muddy footprints in the other water dishes that I leave inside the doorways to deter cats, they must have clean feet when they leave & full bellies.
The one being pursued is coming out very early – 20.15 most nights while it’s still light, must be fed up waiting after a long hot dry day. The bigger one comes hurtling across the garden towards her, I think he must rev up along the back path to full speed before he hits the garden after coming though the hedgehog hole! Wish they’d stay in hiding later, too many people around that early.
Your rat came here if he’s rusty red, I spotted him on the path hoovering up dropped peanut granules early one morning & took the bird feeder down straight away. Never seen one here before & never a rusty red one in any case. I also found rat droppings in the bottom hog feeder the same day so took that up & just used the other one which I moved on advice to the centre of the garden away from cover & put cottonwool soaked in peppermint oil at the four corners outside it. Not a sight of one since, eventually after a few weeks I started hanging the feeder up again. Interestingly the birds (mostly sparrows) got used to no feeder very fast & just continued to come & spend hours in the shrubs & bird baths, the majority of the starlings went elsewhere though. The starlings are still around & some have returned here so no worries there. I felt terrible removing the feeder for weeks as the babies were fledging but they still are & there are a lot of them. The rat made a rush at sparrows while it was on the path so just as well it’s moved on. Maybe just passing through on his way on holiday the day I saw him!
Stopped feeding the squirrels because of cats treating the feeder as a squirrel supermarket & often see some eating dropped peanut granules including some new skinny tailed babies. Plenty of squirrels still here.
Strimmers I hate, glad you have some newly interested wildlife gardening fans.
