Wildlife in the garden - at any time of year

[Dog Star]

This was on the ground near our hedge line... after a dose of gusting wind. The nest space is about 2" in diameter and the cone depression is about 2" deep. The nest is lined with moss, feathers and hair from our Golden Retriever. My guess is that the nest was built by a Robin although there have been no Robins in our garden this year.



Robin or something else?

Rgds, Graham

 

[jcm@gwr]

This was on the ground near our hedge line...

Robin or something else?

Rgds, Graham

What? I think you forgot to add the photo!

 

[Dog Star]

What? I think you forgot to add the photo!

Thank you, corrected.

 

[Stephen]

Last couple of weeks we’ve had our usual visitors:



A couple of different foxes do their circuit and pass through the garden, sometimes in pairs. this chap was wandering solo at about 8am one morning.

Then we have our nighttime visitors:



This chap usually wanders through about 9:30/10:00pm. Haven’t seen the cubs yet - might be too early, I honestly don’t know.

Generally neither set of visitor causes much trouble - the squirrels are far more destructive on the lawn!

Cheers,

Stephen

 

[simond]

not too worried about the foxes and badgers, but I'd be a bit wary of the albino lion

 

[Stephen]

not too worried about the foxes and badgers, but I'd be a bit wary of the albino lion

Evidently found his way into the garden via a fox burrow…..!

 

[Rob Pulham]

The mention of fox burrow brought to mind a little episode that happened this week. It happened while we were having breakfast and so quick that we didn't have time to reach for the phone or camera.

Since some (or all) of the bottom dropped out of the owl box in the field just beyond the railway and the resident Barn owls moved on. A pair of Little owls have taken up residence in the owl box.

We see them out and about quite often, mostly when one or the other (or occasionally both) are sat sun bathing in nearby trees. One of them also regularly sits on some planks which protrude off of the edge of a sheep shelter just below the owl box. While there it often poops, in the same place each time, almost as if it's a designated toilet.

From sitting there, on Monday or Tuesday morning, it flew down to the ground in the field (presumably looking for food) and after a few moments it dropped out of sight into a nearby rabbit burrow.

It got rather a nasty shock, given the speed that it suddenly popped back out, there must have been someone in residence in the hole . It stopped for a few seconds on the ground and shook itself. then it flew back into the tree.

 

[Dog Star]

Just about three weeks back I posted a photo of a bird nest that was on the ground in our garden. Today Smudge alerted us to something in the scrub beside our Lower Bank Shed, we went to look and found that Smudge was looking at a Blue Tit fledgling, see photo below.




Peter lifted the bird carefully and put the bird onto a leafy branch in the tree line. The bird started calling to a parent and then flew up into the canopy. Smudge sulked at the loss of a playmate.

Rgds, Graham