Cheers <3
Mr Attila has a much better camera than I do (the ones of SR on the doorstep came off his camera), but I'm tempted to see if I can't get better photos some other night -- SR was quite small when he was stealing cat treats (photo of him on the step), but he's a fat barstard these days now that he's got two food stations loads of slugs to eat. (There's a hidden food bowl behind the flower pots, because we think there's at least 3 of them that come over every night, and they're quite shy).
We don't have them in the US, except for the rare stripey Canadian one that Blodwyn has (ha!), and I'd never seen one in person before until Small Robert showed up last month. Just about after full dark you can hear them knocking about in the neighbours' garden, and if I go out and shake their bowl, they come grunting along and squeeze through the gap under the fence. They're quite loud when they're talking and playing (and fussing -- they chuff like steam trains when they're annoyed with each other) and they have appalling table manners -- we can hear them crunching away at their biscuits through the cat flap.
ETA -- Crisps? has the flying hedgehog avatar.
Myself really miss North American birds -- when I had my own house, we had a feeding station, and throughout the winter especially all sorts would drop in. I really miss bobwhites and cardinals. One winter we had loads of birds that I could tick off in my bird book, including a white duck that got blown off course from somewhere and decided to hang out eating the sheeps' food. In summer we'd get loads of hummingbirds; I had three or four feeders that I was refilling constantly during migration season. They swarm around the feeders in flocks (although they are solitary and territorial birds), and frequently dive bomb and torment the dogs by bouncing off their heads.
