The frog is back! Haven't seen it for ages, but now seems to be using our little (baking tray) pond as an air bnb. Not sure if it brought its own snail...
We've got a bit of a fox problem. The issue is they are somewhat living up to their sneaky reputation. For a while now they (definitely one individual, possibly two) have been helping themselves to the peanuts in the squirrel feeder. So we're now lifting it up and bringing it inside in the evening. This is annoying on several fronts: first we have to remember to lift it and put it back out in the morning; and this reduces the 'opening times' for the other animals that use it. I wouldn't normally begrudge them this, but peanuts are expensive and I'm pretty sure the nightly fox activity is discouraging the hedgehogs.
One evening, I put out several spoonfuls of hedgehog food at select locations in the garden (avoiding using a bowl as this seems to encourage gulls). I had barely gone into the kitchen to clean the spoon before the fox was out and snaffling up the food! The French windows were still open! So I went and put some more out and the same happened again. The third time I shivvied it out of the garden, but it probably came back as soon as I left.
There's one with very distinctive black markings on its muzzle (below, middle) that definitely has a food route through several gardens on the street. Once it has finished at ours, it crosses over the road checking out small hedges and bushes, slowly working its way down the street.
Out of interest, to see which animals were using the designated 'hedgehog highway', we set the trail camera on it one night. The video below gives a good indication just how tiny a gap foxes can fit through. When it sidles off to the right, there is a narrow space of about 5-10cm through which it slunk to the nextdoor garden.
The back garden has turned into a bit of creche for young birds. There's sparrows, a few last starlings and magpies with floofy [yes that is a technical term] trousers using the garden as sort of life skills experiement. They are into anything and everything - dustbathing all over the place, balancing precariously on the rather overgrown self seeded pumpkin plant leaves, rummaging in my new cloverbed and bathing in any suitable water container. They particularly seemed to love the roof of the guinea pig hutch (covering the clover bed) when it had rained.
Unfortunately all this activity of rather unexperienced birds attracted the attention of the local sparrowhawk [which is also pretty cool, we haven't seen it in a while either]. It probably had young to feed afterall. It's always really noticable when there's been a bird of prey in the garden as it goes so quiet!
A couple of other interesting observations this month:
Back in the long warm sunny days of June (remember those?) the front garden came alive with the sound of grasshoppers! This is really cool, probably testament to leaving long patches of grass! Even more amazing - I managed to photograph one :)
Further research suggests it is a Common Field Grasshopper Chorthippus brunneus.
I've also finally worked out what several of the unfamiliar flowers in the front garden are!
And finally, a highly confusing/disturbing photo of a gull....
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