Hi Annie
Sorry to hear you have only been seeing one or two hogs, but perhaps it is an endorsement of how good you have made your garden for them that they don’t need to eat artificial food and there are, really, more of them snuffling around in the undergrowth. The thing about here, is that I have been feeding/watering/looking out for the hogs for a very long time and numbers have built up over many years. There is probably more competition for my hog hostelry than there used to be, but generations of hogs must have been coming here and hopefully, some of them will continue to. The interesting thing I have been able to see, with the cams, is that the numbers seen arriving don’t match with those seen leaving. So some of them must be using different routes up and down the garden where they can’t be seen. By no means all of them visit every night and there isn’t always exciting action. Often it is, arrive – eat – drink – leave! I think I may have ‘trained’ them not to arrive too late. If they do, there’s no food left.
My ‘early bird’ hog visitor arrived at 9.09 pm last night. She has done the same other years. Luckily, I had put the food out early, in case. She was looking beautiful after the rain had given her a good wash and her natural colours showed up wonderfully in the daylight. She is a slightly unusual russety colour. I hadn’t seen her the night before and wonder whether she had arrived before the food was out and gave up and left. She must be at least 3 years old now. I wonder whether she is Digger’s daughter, as she has a similar dark face. She sometimes digs through the food a bit like Digger, but not as much and she is not as big as Digger. I haven’t seen Digger the last few nights,but I fear that, if she had hoglets, something might have happened to them, as she has been very interested in the boys when I was seeing her.
The boys are in tearing around mode again. They rush in and eat very quickly then rush off again. Also the usual leisurely drinking has turned into some very speedy lapping. They can lap incredibly quickly if they want to! Sometimes they are so speedy that I don’t have time to see who’s who.
There are beginning to be some very scruffy looking male blackbirds around now. The chap with some white feathers looks as if he might have a completely bald head before long, but it probably won’t be long before they all disappear to moult, etc. Interestingly, one of the females has become very persisitent in trying to get my attention and has really taken over from the boys in that respect. The garden has been full of baby birds – probably more sparrows than anything else, but lots of others too. I love to see them, but the cheeky little sparrows seem to love pulling up seedlings and cuttings! I have had to make a mini enclosure for the plants until they get a bit bigger. The house martins look to be doing ok too. There are four artificial nests on my house and this year they have spread out to some of the neighbouring houses again, too, which is lovely to see. The road is beginning to look like it did years ago, again, with martins swooping around all over the place. They are such cheerful little birds.
