The Unofficial Picture Heavy Wildlife Thread.

[JoceAndChris]

Lovely goslings Robin. And all the other pets too - gorgeous.

Scattering grain for the chickens has encouraged not only rats but all manner of little birds - I never quite know what will be out there when I go, last week 5 ducks, today a little cluster of partridges.

We have pheasants, owls, hedgehogs, woodpeckers, kestrels and bats living here too, but none of them wish to be photographed!

 

[MdB]

We have a large number of Tawny owls in the area but I have yet to see one let alone take a picture of one. I've put up a suitable owl box in the garden but nobody has called it home yet.

 

[skier-hughes]

We have a family of little owls nesting in an Ash tree adn last year for the first time since work started on the barns down at the farm some 15 years ago we had a barn owl back and in one of them

 

[JoceAndChris]

Oh, how sweet.

I don't know where anybody is nesting, they're all being very secretive about it, and I can't get in the spinney now with the Joce-high nettles. The previous owner has sited around 50 boxes of varying sizes throughout the grounds but I've yet to see even one being used!

Owls mate for life, and can live 18 years - so I hope to find their home eventually.

 

[Feltwell]

I spent all day yesterday out in the garden - heaven knows it needs it - it was lovely to be doing that for a change, rather than building work. I was soft and left all the dead leaves that are strewn across our front garden, as I regularly see the blackbirds out there turning them over, looking for insects.

I then felt very guilty as whilst pruning a hedge, a female blackbird shot out - looking into the hedge I could see a nest, which I didn't know was there. She was sat in a tree looking at me, so hopefully went back to the nest. There were no young in it, but I couldn't tell if there were eggs there or not.

Elsewhere - we have more blackbirds nesting in some very overgrown thorny plants in the back garden, and the sparrows have already found some nooks & crannies in my new garage to nest in, plus they're in part of the house roof (as usual!). All my nest boxes have been completely ignored, which seems to be standard!

Finally, whilst outside late last night I could hear a loud snuffling sound - we had a pair of hedgehogs in the front garden, which is lovely as we haven't seen any here for 3 years now.

 

[MdB]

Finally, whilst outside late last night I could hear a loud snuffling sound - we had a pair of hedgehogs in the front garden, which is lovely as we haven't seen any here for 3 years now.

I've yet to see a hedgehog in our garden though I would be surprised if we didn't have any at all.

We do have one of these though:

Fraggle - North African Spur Thighed Tortoise - 30 to 50 years old. Unfortunately she is mostly blind.
(picture by Mrs MdB and a Flickr Explore - of which she has many)

 

[JoceAndChris]

Aww I'd love one of those. What a great age!

The thing about hedgehogs is that the naughty things can do 30-40 gardens in a night, or two miles. I've followed them round here and they are really, really inefficient in the way they forage for food.

You can get them to be pets, but it seems like an awful lot of work.

http://www.hedgehoghelp.co.uk/index.php?topic=401.0

 

[Feltwell]

See, who says Tortoises are slow? That one has made it from North Africa!

My grandparents had a tortoise, now in the care of my aunt, who must be at least 70 years old. Tim (as he is known) is a right little escape artist - he likes to dig and, despite my grandfather burying chicken wire to a 2' depth beneath the garden fences and keeping him in an enclosure, he still used to manage to escape on a regular basis. He has his address in Dymo marker on the back of his shell - once he was found 6 miles from their house.

He has had his fair share of scrapes - he crawled into a bonfire unnoticed that was then lit, which badly damaged his shell. That was 40 years ago - at the time my father repaired his shell (with agreement from the vet) with car body filler! Didn't seem to do him any harm.

His goal in life was always to break into my grandfather's fruit cage at night, where he would be found usually motionless the next day, clearly with very bad stomach ache - having gorged himself on strawberries. Dandelions were also a great favourite, as were frozen peas - don't ask me why but he'd leave them if they were de-frosted.

 

[Matt Green]

Tortoises: crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside. Right Ludo?

 

[philpjuk100]

Leave the back door open and there are chickens everywhere!

 

[Moo]

Aww I'd love one of those.

If you really mean it, Joce, I have a young friend not far from here who breeds some sort of exotic giant tortoise. She lives in a fabulous old house, and the tortoises are kept in the crumbling Victorian greenhouses in the grounds. If you'd like to visit her and learn all about keeping tortoises, let me know.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Oh, how lovely. Perhaps one day Moo - but I'm really hoping the smallholding's going to take off in the next year with more chickens and pigs so I'd better resist the temptation at the moment.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Oh, how lovely. Perhaps one day Moo - but I'm really hoping the smallholding's going to take off in the next year with more chickens and pigs so I'd better resist the temptation at the moment.

If you get pigs before me, I'll haunt you!

 

[JoceAndChris]

Oh come on Robin, you've already beaten me with cows. Anyhow, you're far ahead of me with fencing, and I think pigs go from Spring to Autumn, so perhaps we'll pig-farm simultaneously in 2011?

 

[Penners]

perhaps we'll pig-farm simultaneously in 2011?

*Sigh*.

FW - you've obviously got what it takes.

I don't think a woman has ever propositioned me in that way.

 

[JoceAndChris]

:lol: And I phrased it so carefully as well - not carefully enough it seems!

 

[Flyfisher]

The mayflies started hatching here last week and were all over the car today. As it was a lovely still evening I spent a couple of hours on the river doing a spot of 'shopping' . . .

 

[MdB]

Three for two down Tescos were they?




(runs off an hides quickly before FF catches me...)

 

[Flyfisher]

:lol: not those ones.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Cor! Nice fish. Please tell me that charming kitten I met at yours will receive some of that.