I saw 3 about a month ago.
A couple of females rescued from the pond while skimming leaves from the surface amongst all the myriad other wildlife that neccessitated screening each sweep before depositing the leaves. But no animal life of any kind in the last month apart from the frequent newts gulping at the surface but always, with one notable exception, avoiding the net. 
I always leave as much rotting wood as I can lying around to encourage them.
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I canāt get this close to a collared dove ā but an old half-deaf cat with arthritis can! Silly birds, collared dovesā¦but this one gets away in timeā¦
You can just see catās black paws at the top right of the screen waiting while the dove makes up his/her mind.ā¦
Or maybe the dove knows that Noire the cat is past itā¦!
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I have large pigeons come down to drink at my pond and donāt pay any attention to me as I sit there reading my Kindle in between swims. But they have white flashes on the backs of their necks. What are they called, apart from pigeons of course?
But what really stops me reading are the dragonflies who tirelessly patrol up and down and come very close sometimes, when not falling out in wonderful WW2 fashion dogfights when another arrives.
And Hissing Sid has returned after a week or so absence. What was different this time is that I saw him on his patrol around the edges as I was climbing out, so obviously we will soon be on ābisousā terms. He, and his mate and youngster usually head for the hills at my approach rather than share the facilities as we appear to be doing now. 
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Wood pigeon?
Thatāll be wood pigeons. We have 2 or 3 that we have given nicknames to - bomber command for the fattest one, wing commander and squadron leader, depending on how they approach the pond, either with an ungraceful bump, waddle or crash dive turn.
And @Wozza Wood Pigeons, those are the ones, they are so similar in colouring that they havenāt got names yet. They seem perfectly capable of expert flight, usually landing on the wooden beam bridge before hopping down to the waterās edge.
What impresses me is how such large birds weave their way through the trees without clipping a branch. 
And this praying mantis, the first Iāve seen this year, and brown to boot as opposed to the usual bright green !
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Have noticed that the weather has changed dramatically as far as birds to the birdbath goes. In summer Iād get roughly 300 + videos every 24 hours. Yesterday amounted to 9 videos.
Time to get the bird feeders outā¦
Not in the garden, but around ā in my studio upstairs. to be precise.
I thought I was sharing my house with a shrew, but havenāt seen her recently, but just now, sitting at my computer, two male field mice appeared from under a chest of drawers, fighting! They ignored me until I stamped my foot a couple of times.
Hope there isnāt a female field mouse around. That would mean babies!
we were astounded to have a red squirrel run across the road, almost under our wheels a few weeks backā¦ Iād thought theyād been ousted by the greysā¦
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Not round here (L&G) we ONLY have red squirrels. 
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thatās marvellous!!!
in the beginningā¦ we were thrilled to see red here ā¦ then grey seemed to take over (a bit like happened in UK)ā¦
then in covid-years, weāve lost sight altogether ā¦no matter what colourā¦ until just recentlyā¦
We were surprised to see reds in the Morvan this year, and it was a very pleasant surprise.
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Iām almost sure I read that there are no greys in France, because they werenāt imported here, unlike in the UK.
you might well have read itā¦ but whoever wrote those words had obviously not been to my part of Franceā¦
unless thereās a suggestion that OH and Iā¦ smuggled grey squirrels in our luggageā¦
What weāve seen over the years are definitely NOT red ā¦ looked grey/charcoalā¦ anything but the clear/bright red we were used to in UK as kidsā¦
Yes. occasionally redsā¦ but getting rarer sightingsā¦ until recently.
EDIT of course, thereās no reason why French squirrels should be same as those in UKā¦ but weāve seen 2 very, very different colours since weāve been hereā¦
Red squirrels arenāt always red,
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