Hedgehog antics last night. I was watching a little hog roam about the garden from my bedroom window. Round and round he was going. Kitty (the neighbours cat) arrived at one point and I thought “uh-oh, don’t spoil it Kitty!”, but she didn’t. I’d been watching lil’ hog for about 15/20 mins when suddenly arrived one MASSIVE hog! He was around 3/4 times the size of lil’ hog! He was darting about the garden like a bull in china shop. Then he stumbled onto lil’ hog and started pushing him about!!! Poor lil’ hoggy!! 🙁 Big hoggy went off after a minute and poor lil’ hoggy sat there scared. He’d just started moving about again when big hog came back for another push!
I lost sight of them just after that. I worried about poor lil’ hoggy all night.
🙁
Big Chief Crazy Eye!
Me-um back. Me-um sit on fence, have photo taken. Me-um give Crazy Eye stare!
Interloper Pussy
This lovely Russian Blue interloping ‘boozem’ was a welcome sight this morning – until it decided to try and hunt the Willie Wagtail. Bad pussy!!
Willie In The Snow
Get your mind out of the gutter! I mean Willie WAGTAIL! 🙂
Hilda: The Lost Hog, Part 2
RIP Poor Hilda.
She lost her fight overnight. Jacqui called this morning. I was elsewhere so she left a message on the answering machine. She had appeared to be going well. I’d called Jacqui on Wednesday for an update on her. She had lost then regained weight. She still had weight gaining problems, losing then regaining weight since Wednesday. Then she just appeared to have had enough of the fight, the poor little sweetheart, and gave up. I hope she’s enjoying her new life in the big hog box in the sky.
Hilda: The Lost Hog.
At around 2pm on Saturday (Nov. 14th), I was sitting on the sofa reading, Em was in the kitchen doing some washing when suddenly Em said to me “there’s a hedgehog in the garden”. Okay, not that significant you might think, but if you know ANYTHING about hedgehogs (and as we have several visiting our garden we’ve read up and are familiar with hedgehog antics) you’ll know that seeing a hedgehog (a nocturnal creature) out in daylight is NOT good.
The weather was quite horrible. It was raining and the light was dimming (even at 2pm, yes!), but still, a hedgehog shouldn’t really be seen out before dusk. Em gloved up, went outside and retrieved the poor little mite. We initially had the poor little fella/miss in a cardboard box.
Duck Tales (The Movie).
It’s just gone 2.45am and I have just been outside (around 30 mins ago) to see a duck in the middle of our street. Yes, that’s right, you read correctly – A DUCK!
Just after 2am I went to the toilet and on my return, thought I’d look out the bedroom window to see if I could see any hedgehogs in the garden. Couldn’t really see anything as the window was steamed up with condensation, so I wiped it, had a quick peek at the grass and saw nothing. I then did a quick sweep of the surroundings – the houses beyond, the street… Talking to myself: “WHAT is that??? It looks like a bird…it CAN’T be, it’s 2.10am!!! But it bloody well is a bird.” “Em…Em…I can see a bird on the road. It’s a duck! On the road…just sitting there!!”, I’m saying to her. She groggily gets up and has a look. “Yes, it does look like a duck.” I said to her “Oh this is TOO good. I’ve GOT to see this”, and went outside for a better look. He was just there, starting to get a bit spooked by our presence, waddling slowly away from us down the road. Em went back in to get some bread for him. The sound of tawny owls were piercing the otherwise eerily quiet night. I wanted to stand there and listen to them, their call is so haunting and fantastic. I rarely get a treat like that for my efforts, so it was a lovely bonus. Anyway, here’s a little video of “Donald”.[youtube=http://youtu.be/75cY3k162Hk]
Hogwatch Update.
Just had to add this pic. The other night there were two hogs in the box at feeding time. But now, tonight, there are THREEEEEEE!!!
Yes, three little hogs in the box – all vying for dog food! WARNING: The following image may cause aCUTE sensory overload (boom boom)! LOL
Little Hog!
Timber!
wooden heart, originally uploaded by gobayode photography.
Yesterday one of the nearby neighbours had three large conifers chopped down. It’s JULY. That’s still in the nesting season.
Now I know for certain that Mr & Mrs Blackbird had their nest in one of these conifers. Yes, their two chicks had fledged quite some time ago, but it proves to me that other bird species would have been nesting in those trees. All afternoon I watched endless pigeons fly around wondering where their “houses” had gone. It’s so terrible to see animals in distress. This morning there was a juvenile blackbird in our garden, sitting on the lawn looking sorry for himself. What if Mr & Mrs B had bred again? There was time enough in the year for them to do that. Lots of bird species have more than one brood if there is ample time in the season to do so. It is illegal to fell trees that have active nests. You are meant to inspect before going ahead with any fells. I really get the impression this did NOT happen yesterday. I haven’t seen Mr B at all in the last 24 hours. I’m sure poor Mr & Mrs B will move on now and we’ll no longer have resident blackbirds 🙁 I want to cry! I’m not against the peoples right to fell the trees in their garden. But what I *DO* object to is them doing it at this time of year. They should have waited until September, when the nesting season was fully over with. It made me feel SO sad yesterday. I couldn’t help but feel for the birds. The misanthrope in me was at its highest yesterday.