While looking for information about Great Tits, I stumbled on this entertaining little article on h2g2 about who might be stealing the hazelnuts from our trees before they’re ready to eat…
Timeline
Great Tit has a Lucky Escape
Sometimes the cat doesn’t only get the cream, it also gets the unsuspecting bird (or frog) as well. Yesterday, I could hear one of the cats miaowing outside and wondered what the problem was. I opened the back door and Suki, the big black female cat, sauntered in with something clutched in her mouth. She continued to announce her arrival and went into the hall, where my wife intercepted her and rescued the bird she’d delivered.
It turned out (from a quick consultation of the excellent photographic guide in the Collins Complete British Wildlife) we had a juvenile Great Tit in our possession. The colours are all there, except the yellow face, which – according to the book – doesn’t become white until adulthood. Quite where she got it from I don’t know, but we kept it inside for a while, in a small cage with food and water, and after about half an hour, my wife tried to get it back into the garden. She placed it on this little bird nester, but it didn’t seem ready. It just stared at her.
We had it in the house a while longer – where it continued to stare a lot, with occasionally lapses into sleep – until it hopped up on it’s feet and seemed ready to go. Refreshed and recovered, when I took it outside, it paused for only a moment before launching into the air and flying into a nearby tree.
A lucky save from becoming dinner!
Roller Hamster Derby
It’s tough keeping track of ‘em. Harder still taking any reasonable picture!
Blockhead
Does anyone have any ideas why a squirrel would have a square of fur missing in the middle of it’s forehead?
This critter – affectionately known as ‘Blockhead’ – has been coming to our garden for a few weeks now. He doesn’t stay still for long, a squirrel ever in pursuit of nuts, so the quality of the picture isn’t so good. Motion blur does not make for a good image.
Blockhead appears to be quite a feisty character, one of the chasers rather than the chased. I suppose that might be the source of his injury, but he doesn’t seem inconvenienced by it. You might wonder whether such a mark might disrupt his vision, but thus far nothing seems to suggest that this is the case at all.
We’ll keep an eye out for him! And, maybe, get some better pictures…
Bath-room
Not a good thing at all, we found some tiny mycelium beneath the bath cavity, likely encouraged by the damp of shoddy plumbing…
Dangerous Holes
We have a hole outside our driveway.
United Utilities sent out their contractors, Enterprise, who dug a hole in the corner of the road, slung some yellow barriers around it, dropped a yellow toughened plastic cover over half of the hole, and then left. They didn’t return for two days. The hole, on initial inspection, contained water – filthy water – and turned out to be about 12 inches deep. For some reason, Enterprise – who, apparently, won the Highways Considerate Contractors Gold Award in 2009 – thought that the barriers only needed to be there to stop pedestrians falling into the hole. Considerate of human beings, but less concerns about cats, dogs, squirrels, hedgehogs and any other random wildlife not expect a deep hole where there used to be tarmac.
It’s my experience that no wildlife has an inherent ability to read warnings or take any notice of yellow barriers designed only to warn off idiotic bipeds. On phoning Enterprise – who claim to have a commitment to operate in a responsible way towards its customers, communities and environments in which it operates – the person on the other end of the phone explained the barrier was intended to stop pedestrians getting hurt and when informed we’d be contacting the RSPCA, indicated they weren’t likely to do much about it.
Anyway – the day after the phone call, and the day before anyone turned up to do something about the hole, it rained. The hole filled almost to the brim with foaming, murky water – though, we’d taken our own steps to cover it with a sheet of thick cardboard anchored with rubble. Luckily, no animals got hurt, though the opportunity certainly presented itself…
Perhaps, in future, United Utilities and Enterprise could take the time to show greater consideration for the community – both human and animal – and not dig dangerous holes days before anyone plans to do anything with them. I understand schedules may mean the people who fix can’t get to a spot the same day the people who dig – but, when that happens, the people who dig should try a darn sight harder to ensure they leave having made the location safe to anyone simply passing through.
Ah… A Challenge!
Squirrels appreciate nothing more than a challenge. Fine weather or foul, there’s nothing quite like a hanging treat to get a squirrel excited. Here. the cage of nuts hangs off a side branch, while the squirrel sits on a broken branch we’ve stuck between the main trunk of the tree and an old wooden bird feeder. The persistant squirrels will happily hang upside-down from that cage trying to pry nuts out through the holes, which – depending on the nut and the angle, can seem a little too small. Challenge, however, is everything.
Looks How I Feel
Seriously hot today and all the cats are lounging around the garden in various states of unconsciousness.
I know exactly how they feel. Stay still too long in this heat and my skin will crisp up like an order of duck from the local takeaway!
Cat Biscuits for Me
We just witnessed a hedgehog in our back garden for the first time in ten years. While we’ve (unfortunately) seen casualties on the main road a ways from here and I’ve seen one in a neighbours front garden, we’d never seen one ourselves in the garden. Given our garden contains so many nooks and crannies, this has always seemed odd – and it’s often seemed likely we’ve simply been missing them. In the last couple of weeks we have noticed poop in the garden that we couldn’t identify, but there was no reason to suspect it was a hedgehog.
This even, however, on looking through the backdoor, we found a hedgehog feeding on scraps of cat biscuits from a bowl in the back garden. We do have a lot of cats around; but, last time I did see a hedgehog it had rolled up tight and a cat that had been toying with it rapidly lost interest in the ball of spines. We will have to keep a keen eye open now to make sure the cats keep away from the little fellow – and be sure to keep the odd snack or two outside to reward him for his efforts.
Nice to extend the back garden menagerie!
Bat Garden
Our resident Pipistrelle bat made an appearance this evening, despite the fact the garden wasn’t terribly warm. The summer sees a lot of bat activity, as the insect swarm provides a regular smorgasbord – so, seeing the bat out appeared a little odd.
Still, nice to see him around so early – and looking forward to seeing further activity from our little friend in the nights to come. I’d love to get a picture, but if I tried I’m reasonably certain I’d get nothing but sky and, perhaps, a grey/brown blur if I’m really lucky.