Wildlife spotting

[holyzombiejesus]

I've got an Apeman camera, can't remember the exact module. Really easy to use -- I keep it on a tripod aimed at the Party Palace. A lot of my photos inthis thread were pulled off it.

I've been so busy with bleaugh on campus during the week, that I haven't been checking the camera daily -- so once a week I bring it in and have a l ovely look through close to 1,000 or so photos

Don't you get loads of photos of rats? Doesn't the hedgehog food and little house attract rats also? I fucking hate rats. I'd really like to set up loads more wildlife friendly areas in the garden and on the walls of the house but I don't want to attract the fuckers and would only want well-behaved quiet birds to stay in any nest boxes we erected. Also, I'm drunk and may as well say it, those bug hotels that people put up? Nah.

( i really like your hedgehog photos & stories by the way)

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Just popping in to report more boar activity.  A truly lovely sighting, wish I had a camera.  Was walking to work last week, one really long valley to walk along, mountains all round, as is normal with valleys.  Serried with rangs of vines - changing colour, leaf-wise now to gold, lime, apricot, scarlet and plum - punctuated by vertical dark Italian cypresses.  Tartan.  Quite magnificent.  Sun moving to setting behind me at the end of the valley, beyond the blue mountains.  Long ropes of golden light that early winter blesses the land with.  I turned, to fill myself with the utter beauty and down the mountain, to my right, ran a string of boar. 

Mother and about ten striped marcassin.  In a proper line.  Five metres away.  Down they came prancing and skipping.  Snouts raised.  Glorious.  Fearless.  Laughing.  Across the path and down into the vines.  Silhouetted between me and the falling sun.  Every bristle shone, a rosy golden halo.  Unspeakably wonderful.  Something to think on for a lifetime.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gullinbursti

This is beautiful. Thank you.

[Menu]

oh Horace!

Ha ha! But if they're not going to take it seriously you should stop feeding them.

[Menu]

I just trod on a dead hedgehog. That's made me unfeasibly sad.

Poor little guy. I donate to these guys who do sterling work in helping hedgehogs. I fear they are fighting a losing battle though. https://ptes.org/campaigns/hedgehogs

I've dug my own little hedgehog highway but I don't suppose many houses on my street have. I last saw a hedgehog in 2004, we used to see them all the time. Very sad.

[Menu]

Don't you get loads of photos of rats? Doesn't the hedgehog food and little house attract rats also? I fucking hate rats. I'd really like to set up loads more wildlife friendly areas in the garden and on the walls of the house but I don't want to attract the fuckers and would only want well-behaved quiet birds to stay in any nest boxes we erected. Also, I'm drunk and may as well say it, those bug hotels that people put up? Nah.

( i really like your hedgehog photos & stories by the way)

Ha! I've made a couple of those bug hotels. I'm just trying to encourage as much wildlife as possible. I have two cats, plus a stray that we feed. And I know that this makes it difficult for birds so I'd like to see as many other types of animal as possible. I watched a butterfly a few weeks ago just sort of fluttering about in the garden - and it really made my day. And that's just a shit butterfly! Imagine if I saw a badger?!

[Menu]

He's made an unlikely pal too



Slug seems to be in and out of the bowl every night whilst Horace chows down on more tasty snacks.

Great photo. Yeah we always end up with loads of slugs in the bowls. But I just leave them there as they're a nice treat for the birds who get up before our fat lazy cats. Everyone's a winner!



Apart from the slug.

[Attila]

Don't you get loads of photos of rats? Doesn't the hedgehog food and little house attract rats also? I fucking hate rats. I'd really like to set up loads more wildlife friendly areas in the garden and on the walls of the house but I don't want to attract the fuckers and would only want well-behaved quiet birds to stay in any nest boxes we erected. Also, I'm drunk and may as well say it, those bug hotels that people put up? Nah.

( i really like your hedgehog photos & stories by the way)

Cheers about the photos :) It's always fun reviewing them in the morning and seeing what kind of nuttiness or derpy fox faces we might have captured.

Over the past 3 years, we've had exactly one photo of a rat, and that was before the Party Palace was established (so the photo was about 3 years ago - and in winter, so it might have been foraging); it was right around when we started). We've not seen any or indications of any since -- there are a number of neighbourhood cats that hang around our garden at night, which probably helps.

So I can see where it could be a risk to get rats -- maybe if you get a camera, see what results with initial experiements, and then stop if you're attracting unwanted visitors.

We have a hedgehog house deep in the back of the garden where it's not disturbed -- the Party Palace is just a u-shaped bit of metal arched over two bricks, with the bowl underneath; it's more of a tunnel than a house.

Mr Gus is constantly on patrol (the hedgehogs are not fussed by him, but the foxes will shy away from  him), and for a while there was Mr Jingles, an opportunist neighbour's cat, but I think Mr Jingles' owner has moved away. No idea what Mr Jingle's actual name is, but he had a bell on his collar, hence our name for him.

[Attila]

Just went through a  week of photos; loads of foxies and hedgehogs. Cats galore -- Mr Jingles is still around, and a new cat has shown up to keep Mr Gus on his toes. Lots of magpie action, too. A few highlights (excluding Mr Attila's naked arse, from me leaving the camera on the side table in the kitchen one morning).

Mr Jingles






Magnificent tail




New cat

[BlodwynPig]

New cat

He's called Schrodinger - here he is at mine at the same time your camera captured him.

"The Owls...The Owls are in the trees"

[Attila]

Bilocation!


(Old Mr Kitty's real name was Schrodinger, but I have a really hard time pronouncing it, so I just called him Mr Kitty instead.)

[BlodwynPig]

Bilocation!


(Old Mr Kitty's real name was Schrodinger, but I have a really hard time pronouncing it, so I just called him Mr Kitty instead.)

Yours is black lodge Schrodinger....look at his face!

[Attila]

I just figured mine was singing the songs of his people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIR3XFuY4Qs

[BlodwynPig]

As I suspected...anyone driving a car recklessly on a country road earns my absolute hatred.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-54524338

[bgmnts]

:(

[BlodwynPig]

:(

You agree, these drivers should be punished heavily, yes? You see them zooming along the lanes in their huge monster cars because they think they've made it, which entitles them to purchase and behave like CUNT YANKS. You see them oblivious to the nature around them, zooming off to have an affair or to "watch" Countryfile with the kids. I hate them. I always give a middle finger to them when they pass me on the lanes.

[bgmnts]

If by punished you mean crash into a bollard and be paralysed to the point of being unable to drive? Yes, very much so.

[Menu]

You agree, these drivers should be punished heavily, yes? You see them zooming along the lanes in their huge monster cars because they think they've made it, which entitles them to purchase and behave like CUNT YANKS. You see them oblivious to the nature around them, zooming off to have an affair or to "watch" Countryfile with the kids. I hate them. I always give a middle finger to them when they pass me on the lanes.

Those poor little hedgehogs. Poor little guys. I didn't even know there was so many of them left. I'd be mortified if I ever ran one over. Like foxes, they're only crossing the roads because their natural habitat has been so ravaged that they have to walk further and further afield and take stupid risks. Fucking humans.

[BlodwynPig]

I'm beginning to wonder if putting food out now is disrupting Horace's plans for hibernation. Any ideas? He looks big enough to survive the eternal winter.

[Attila]

I'm beginning to wonder if putting food out now is disrupting Horace's plans for hibernation. Any ideas? He looks big enough to survive the eternal winter.

We cut back in the winter, but still leave a small amount out -- sometimes hibernating hedgehogs wake up for a stumble around and a quick forage. We've got a hh house deep in the back of the garden, and will sometimes just leave a little bit of kibble near the entryway during the winter time.

You don't want to leave out too much in winter once it gets right cold as that will attract rats, who don't hibernate, the bastards.

With the mild winters, they seem to be hibernating later and later every year.

They will back off on their own, though -- activity at the party palace for the hedgehogs is down, although it's still the happening place for foxes.

[bgmnts]

Seriously though, fucking cars. Everywhere you go, fucking stupid huge metal machines, loud as fuck, dangerous as fuck. Doppler haunts my dreams.

[BlodwynPig]

We cut back in the winter, but still leave a small amount out -- sometimes hibernating hedgehogs wake up for a stumble around and a quick forage. We've got a hh house deep in the back of the garden, and will sometimes just leave a little bit of kibble near the entryway during the winter time.

You don't want to leave out too much in winter once it gets right cold as that will attract rats, who don't hibernate, the bastards.

With the mild winters, they seem to be hibernating later and later every year.

They will back off on their own, though -- activity at the party palace for the hedgehogs is down, although it's still the happening place for foxes.

I have the mouse to feed too. Having the bowl near the shed and foliage certainly makes the mouse braver and is probably easier for fatty Horace. No rats spotted, bit far out of the city probably. Slug has also been a constant companion for Horace no matter where the bowl is.

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I have the mouse to feed too. Having the bowl near the shed and foliage certainly makes the mouse braver and is probably easier for fatty Horace. No rats spotted, bit far out of the city probably. Slug has also been a constant companion for Horace no matter where the bowl is.

That slug comes round mine too. He's got a laser focus for bowls.

[Buelligan]

oh Horace!

This is just the loveliest thing.  Really given my day some special in it.  Thanks pigs.

I too have huge slug issues with my bowls.  The other night I accidentally stood on a very large one, with bare feet, it squidged up between my toes and was eviscerated.  Hugely unpleasant but far worse for the slug.  Felt guilty for days after.

Last night, walking home in the muggy midnight drizzle, I found an enormous, tangerine-sized, Roman snail in the middle of the road, took him to some delicious sward and so my karma was salved somewhat.  Life is so fucking precarious.  How do we even cope?

[Menu]

I too have huge slug issues with my bowls.  The other night I accidentally stood on a very large one, with bare feet, it squidged up between my toes and was eviscerated.  Hugely unpleasant but far worse for the slug.  Felt guilty for days after.

Don't worry, he'll bounce back! They always do.

[Menu]

Last night, walking home in the muggy midnight drizzle, I found an enormous, tangerine-sized, Roman snail in the middle of the road, took him to some delicious sward and so my karma was salved somewhat.  Life is so fucking precarious.  How do we even cope?

Ah yes. Snails are so satisfying to save because you can pick them up by their house. I never know what to do with spiders and sugs, they aren't easy to manoeuvre. And slugs apply themselves to that bowl with the stickiest superglue they can find. They must buy it from special hardware shops or something.

[paruses]

I have always wished I had some biochemistry background to capitalise on the stuff that slugs secrete. It's a bit like post-it note glue but much better and am sure it would have industrial uses. Could make a fortune and become known as the slug-glue billionaire. Then I would spend all the money opening wildlife and animal sanctuaries / coke+sex parties (realistically it would be 60/40).

I tend not to step on slugs but snails are often a casualty and I am wracked with guilt for quite a while afterwards.

Broke up a fight between a house sparrow and a goldfinch the other day. I don't know what had been said but they were really  going at it out on the road. Madness.

[Buelligan]

Yes, regardless of their incredible gluey qualities, I'm afraid slugs only cling precariously to my lowest compassion rung.  A ladder positively leapt up by shire horses, moles and tiny newborn shrews, with alacrity.  They are true bottom-dwellers, for all their lovely protruding eyes.

[bgmnts]

Slugs are ace as fuck.

[Menu]

Yes, regardless of their incredible gluey qualities, I'm afraid slugs only cling precariously to my lowest compassion rung.  A ladder positively leapt up by shire horses, moles and tiny newborn shrews, with alacrity.  They are true bottom-dwellers, for all their lovely protruding eyes.

Have you seen any of these? I think orphaned baby elephants are pretty safely ensconced at the top of my Compassion Premier League. One poor little guy was speared by Kenyan children. The wound quickly became infected and he got separated from his family(abandoned, perhaps). Then the good guys at this charity tried to save him by chasing him for miles in order to shoot him(this time with a sedative). He looked utterly terrified and was crying in distress. After this horror they took him to their shelter where he caught pneumonia and died. I couldn't stop crying. His last week of life was the most terrifying and painful that you could possibly imagine. Absolutely heart-breaking.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b008qg9d/elephant-diaries

[Menu]

Slugs are ace as fuck.

Stop going on about slugs you fucking cunt.