Ours are great especially at digging out moles 
6 are still young, the other 3 are a lot older though their mother is the best at catching things, you just have to wake them up first 
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Decided to sit in the garden on a recliner, stretched out horizontally, listening to personal & showbiz revelations in Jennifer Saunder’s audio book, cat on lap, staring up at the sky with closed eyes, hands clasped behind my head, when something fluttered and landed on my baseball-capped head.
Opened eyes wondering what was going on, looked at the cat who hadn’t stirred, was about to sit up when a blackbird launched itself from my head onto the garden table and then up into a tree.
Baby birds are fluttering their wings for food now, chasing after their parents, so I’m assuming this blackbird must have left the nest fairly recently, thinking that someone’s head is ok to land on. Got a lot to learn!
Many years ago, a robin perched itself on the toe of one of my Wellington boots while I was sitting dreaming one day in winter, and today in summer a blackbird landed and sat on my head!
Back to Jennifer Saunders.
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The last time I saw my builder, after he had replaced my garage and barn rooves with new, and he had been paid, he said he’d be back the following day to pick up his cement mixer. He didn’t turn up so I sent him a reminder several weeks later. He still didn’t turn up, until I sent this photo - ‘SOLD’.
Three months after he’d said “à demain” he arrived a few days ago to pick it up, and he joked about the vendu photograph, so while he was here, I asked if he could clear a way through my ex-neighbour’s old vegetable garden to reach the back of my house, which he did this Saturday morning. I wasn’t in the mood to do it myself, too hot and would have me taken days. There were trees to remove as well.
All done, and now I can look see how where mice and rats have been getting in. Nothing obvious, so will set up an infra-red camera. Builder reckons they’re climbing up the wall to the roof space.
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Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but why not, what might that snake, snail or blackbird in the garden be thinking about?
Interesting article about animals, and us.
At a time when humanity’s self-image is largely shaped by fears of environmental devastation and nuclear war, combined with memories of historical atrocity, it is no longer so easy to say, with Hamlet, that man is “the paragon of animals” – the ideal that other creatures would imitate, if only they could. Nature may be “red in tooth and claw”, but creatures whose weapons are teeth and claws can only kill each other one at a time. Only humans commit atrocities such as war, genocide and slavery – and what allows us to conceive and carry out such crimes is the very power of reason that we boast about.
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Found this on the drive earlier. Assume it’s a harmless variety. Unfortunately it looked a bit dead.
Watch you don’t trip over it. Joking apart - I wonder what happened to it?
It looks like it has a spider or beetle on its head 
Sorry to go on,…
Cats have so often crashed their way through the cat flap – in the style of Adrian Edmonson - that it is well and truly broken. Need a new cat flap, especially now as I see a rat is using it to come out into the garden to feed from the cat croquette dispenser!
This proves there is next to nothing for the rats to eat indoors, so that’s good to know.
One of my cats has got wind of the rats’ presence and is patiently waiting for one of them to come out.
We’ll get there in the end, one way or another!
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Looks like a small boar in the first photo
Hedgehogs like cat food and have been coming into my garden for years. There’s another hedgehog in the second photo. I’ve seen two so far this summer.
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Yes it’s something but couldn’t make it out. Not sure what actually killed it but it’s been devoured by insects.
Would love to be able to identify it. Any snake experts? 
Looks a bit viperish, how long is it? Pity it’s headless.
Old age? Disease? Another snake maybe?
The snake’s body looks angular in its repose, not coiled smoothly, as if broken in places along its length. Beaten or run over, dying later?
It’s probably about 20cm or thereabouts, but looks quite slim so think it might not be an adult
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Small scales on head, usually a viper. Slit vertical pupil, viper. Flattish triangular head often a viper but not always.
Oh goodness it’s teeny, the photograph gave me no idea of scale. Could have been got by a bird. I saw a couple of poor run over grass snakes on the road on Friday, horrible to see them dead.