Wild life in the garden, or around!

[Bonzocat]

Between 2.30am and 3.30am, a solid 60 minutes, a field mouse went back and forth collecting dry leaves I believe, for its nest under one of my bird baths, with great earnest.

Video is reduced to about 6 minutes, with fleeting sightings speeded up, for anyone who has nothing better to do for a few minutes. Nothing exciting to see, however.

I went to look at the grass just outside the safety zone of the bird bath and could see quite clearly an area empty of leaves.

A dangerous 60 minutes in the life of a tiny female prey animal.

Nest building......

[David_Spardo]

As reported much less wildlife to rescue from the pond net recently but yesterday morning a female Stag Beetle appeared in it. Not sure if she wanted to be in the pond but, as I have seen them perfectly happy away from it (including a really big fully horned male in a slipper one day ) I plucked her out and settled her amongst the leaf litter, not far from dead wood.

But on my evening visit, lowering myself in I almost stepped on a small snake, Coulevre, possibly the offspring of the larger one I saw a few weeks ago. He must have been dozing just where I put my foot and quickly slithered into the water and swam away to the other end. I swam that way myself a moment later but saw no more of him. A nice, if brief, encounter though.

[Bonzocat]

Been searching through old photos and came across this one. A neighbour had two peacocks – this is one of them - but both long gone now – don’t know what happened to them.

Don’t know if they’d count as wildlife but they behaved wildly, sitting on various rooftops, eating from other neighbours’ gardens, out and about along roads and chemins, as wild birds do.

[Stella]

Out on one of our trips, we visited a bird sanctuary… can’t remember where… it was amazing, peacocks everywhere, never seen so many birds and so many colours.

[vero]

@Bonzocat

A neighbour had two peacocks – this is one of them - but both long gone now – don’t know what happened to them.

Foxes, maybe. My grandparents had some, they looked beautiful walking on lawns etc but had ghastly personal habits and made a frightful racket, and used to attack their own reflections and scratch cars etc. I think foxes got them in the end, or possibly it was old age ( or the latter led to the former).

[RicePudding]

Remember camping near Harrogate with first wife and kids, and being woken to the screeching of the *$%$$$ perched in trees above our tent. It turned out they would hop from the rooves of the nearby chalets up into the trees, and lurk.

[David_Spardo]

While wandering round with Jules’ bucket this morning I caught sight of the bottom pond snake slithering towards its nest. It has made its home at the bottom of what used to be the waterfall from the middle pond for several years now.

Turning back to my task I then saw this little dead fellow. I am sure Jules didn’t kill it because it was not mangled and he will have noticed it because it wasn’t far away from him but I know that he is not interested in dead things, once briefly identified. When I picked it up it was fairly rigid, so perhaps dead from overnight.

This was where Jules was, on the cool concrete floor of the back terrasse.

[RicePudding]

Poor little dormouse ! (Glis glis or loir gris/commun ?)

[David_Spardo]

Possibly one of the little buggers that scamper around in our roof space, Jules saw one the other day climbing up an outside wall, and shouted at it.

[David_Spardo]

Bit of a commotion here last night around midnight, a bird, swift or swallow, was inside flying here and there in panic. First thing was to shut Jules in a bedroom as he was snapping at it, then, with the torch I had to go up the garden to retrieve the butterfly net, often used for rescues in the house, but then, finally I managed to coax it out of the front door and safely into the night.

[David_Spardo]

3rd in a row, but I’ll plough on. So hot today that I swam a bit then set myself up with a T&T and the Kindle and took the camera with me.

As I was reading something caught my eye, it was the adult Couleuvre racing across the surface corner to corner, faster than I could swim. He disappeared through a broken net I keep there and out of sight in the folds of the liner.

So I put down the Kindle got the camera ready and was rewarded sometime later by 2 full tours of the pond by my friend. At one point he came just below me and paused briefly, obviously oblivious to my presence. I hardly dared breath. Had a quick look at the videos and I think I can get something from them when I edit tomorrow, but it won’t be great. I can’t see properly without my specs and need the reading ones to monitor the screen. At one point I became totally disorientated by the reflections of the sky and treetops in the surface, and thought I was pointing it upwards.

Later went back up just to collect my specs, which I had forgotten, and saw the little one as well as the big one swimming in different places.

[Wozza]

Here you go, for another 3 if you want.
Looking forward to seeing the photos.

[David_Spardo]

Thank you, I have some photos, not sure they are better than this though, a video which I have just finished editing and uploading to YT.
He was there again this morning as I walked past with Jules, but he spotted us and raced off at great speed to the safety of the hanging ivy.
I felt like calling with Jules’ Jacques Brel inspired plea ‘ne me quitte pas’.

Best viewed full screen, he isn’t big and he is quick.

https://youtu.be/mBWEH5G8A7A

[vero]

Part of my garden is seething with blackbirds at the moment, cocks and hens, very busy under the trees and in the leaf-mould and around the various sources of water I have put out for them. They are also lying low in and behind plant pots in my courtyard, poor hot creatures.

[Ancient_Mariner]

We had a bat fly into our living room tonight, through the open window. I turned the lights out and it seems to have flown out again - could find no trace of it after I put the lights back on.

It was fairly large as bats seem to go, bigger than my handspan.

[vero]

They roost in my curtains fairly often.

[David_Spardo]

Sweeping the pond surface today then as usual inspecting the results with a twig there was just one live specimen to return to the deep, yet another dragonfly larvae.
But what was more interesting was a slug like creature, dead, and minus its head. Checked it out and it is a Leopard Slug which has some interesting habits. Apart from the usual slug diet of vegetation in the garden it is also carniverous. Not only that but cannibalistic. It pursues other slugs at 15 cms per hour to catch and eat them.
No mystery as to how it lost its head with that turn of speed, but why it was floating in my pond I have no idea.
Not only that, but its mating habits are acrobatic. the 2 of them climb up to a twig then cast off together to hang in their enjoined slime. After both penises (yes, really) have done their business, each of them goes their seperate ways to lay their eggs. Honestly, what some people get up to.

Snakes are old hat now, I see them every day, more than once. There are at least 2 large ones and one small one. All very agile and swift on the surface but I now know they can dive deep and swim just as fast underwater. One in full flight stopped suddenly, dived, and then popped up within a couple of seconds over a metre away.

For all that they do have trouble scrambling out, most of the shores are rubber liner so I have decided to fix a bit of old carpet at a suitable point to assist them in their endeavour. I expect they’ll come and thank me.

[Geof_Cox]

First confirmed sighting of wild wolves in Brittany for over a century yesterday (the first verified by the national biodiversity office that is - there have been previous reports).
Interesting that they’re coming back.

[Wozza]

Thé best fly trap ever…
For the last two days early morning and in the afternoon this little chap has been flying out of the cellar and through the garden door into the house. After it’s gone back to the cellar we’ve no flies in the house. I have a video but can’t load it on the site here’s a photo

[Bonzocat]

Adventures with a shrew. No photos.

I’ve been sharing my house with a shrew, the small brown furry kind, with a twitchy nose. When I sit at my computer upstairs, I can hear her (I’ll call her, ‘her/she’) scrabbling/scratching around somewhere. Seen her running around downstairs in the kitchen, in the living room, running past my feet and disappearing under the settee - for several weeks! I don’t know what she’s been eating, but she seems to be doing ok.

Was watching BBC news on TV this afternoon, Liz Truss/Sunak and all that, and in the corner of an eye I caught sight of her running towards my feet and disappearing again under the settee in the direction of the kitchen.

Opened up a fresh tin of cat food and placed 3 small lumps where my feet would have been and waited with feet up on settee, with a clear open-topped plastic box in my hand. She turned up a few minutes later and started exploring the 3 blobs of cat food, decided which one she liked best, appeared to be fussy, then started to eat. Being distracted by the food she was eating, I was able to slowly lower the plastic box, and caught her! At last, because I’ve tried several times before, but she was always so alert. Must have been really hungry this time!

Slid an old stiff Christmas card carefully under the box so that I could carry her outside to release her. And my goodness, how animated she became, trying to get her nose between the box and the Christmas card – it was touch and go! She was furious!

When I released her into long grass on the edge of a field, she was reluctant to leave, climbed into the palm of my hand sniffing my fingers with that constantly twitching whiskery nose, then disappeared in the blink of an eye.

I don’t know how she got from upstairs to downstairs and back again. My walls inside are stone built, so maybe she climbed up and down the mortared joints.

How she came into the house in the first place I’m not sure, but one or two of my cats sometimes bring live prey indoors and release them unharmed.