Wednesday 29 June 2016

Garden Watching - 30 Days Wild - Wild Wednesday

   Over the course of this month I've been paying closer attention to the wildlife in the garden, and there have been a few surprising visitors. It's a little strange that two of them would wait until June to appear, because it feels as if no one would believe me, but I think it might be because of 30 Days Wild and people's interaction with nature that has brought it about. Of course, there's always coincidence...
   Usually the garden has six guaranteed animals visiting it: a host of sparrows, a few great tits, some magpies, a pair of pigeons, and two squirrels. Crows appear from time to time to throw the fat feeder on the ground, at which point they steal a whole fat ball and fly off with it, but we've chained it down and they've subsequently given up and feed like normal animals instead.
   Sometimes a sparrowhawk also dives in, but I haven't spotted any this month. However, there have been three additional and, in one case, quite unexpected visitors in its place.
   Seeg saw a fox in the front garden early one morning on the weekend just passed as he took my place getting up early to look after my mum. Such a sighting is exciting, but not too unusual as , two years ago, they created a den beneath a dense bush out there and raised three kits which we watched playing in the street at night (we live in a culdesac, so they were safe) while one of the parents kept watch.
    There's also been a hedgehog building a nest in the back garden behind the bird feeder, which again isn't too unusual, though they usually nest beneath the shed. We've had babies out there countless times, but once when I was young we had to look after one, and we called someone over from Hedgehog Rescue to collect it, but sadly it died a few days later.
   The third and most surprising visitor this month was a woodpecker. We hear them from time to time but we've never seen them outside, but there it was, on the bird feeder, having a go at the fat cake without a care in the world. We've not see it since, and believe me, we've been looking, and it was actually quite exciting.





0 comments:

Post a Comment

I do read every single comment, and I will try to respond where I can. If you have an important question about my blog or my shop, however, then you might be better off contacting me directly by email. Thanks so much for reading my blog!