Sorry I am late with another so indended 'monthly' blog post. Oh well, better late than never right?
November and October seem to have gotten [sorry I hate this word too] confused this year; what with October being overly wet and windy and November having lovely brisk, autumnal mornings - crisp and fresh. [Right - early morning sun on the beautiful silver birches behind us, with heavy rain clouds in the distance].
I love crisp, frosty mornings. Especially if it's not a day I have leave early for work. I'll make up a bowl of bird seed, suet pellets, cheese and chopped up apple [if its been a particularly cold night, fresh water is harder for animals to find and so chopped apples and pears are a good source of moisture], which is then scattered over the lawn and bird feeding stations. I'll take a kettle of warm water out to melt/re-fill the bird bath - letting the steam drift into the still air [whilst reminiscing of the hot volcanic onsen in Hakone...]. I, personally, really appreciate the birds and squirrels more in the winter months. When most of the plants have died back its nice to see some life about the place! It's also often much easier to see the wildlife now the leaves have gone.
We've been getting lots of tits [both blue and coal] which is lovely! There seems to be a small flock that flit through all the back gardens on the street, but by the time I've thought 'blue-tit...must photograp...h' its gone! The cold weather has made them slightly easier to photograph as they really like the suet pellets :)
Next door's rowan tree has been getting a lot of attention from fieldfares - completely stripping it of berries! Just had time to photograph this elusive one that landed in our cherry tree [below].
We've also been getting blackbirds back into the garden again [they really like the chopped apples], I believe the individuals that come in the winter are often from Scandinavia and are not the same as the ones we see in summer. We've also had some tiny wrens and robins visiting, along with the starlings who were very quick to catch on to the suet balls.
They were not the only ones!
The squirrels have been particularly perky this month. Despite not hibernating, squirrels use the autumn months to source and stockpile food, and the colder weather does appear to have forced them into overdrive. I've watched many a squirrel stealthily conceal a prized peanut only for it to be almost instantly dug up by someone else as soon as the first one flounces away.
After being immune from any bulb thievery for several years, there have been a few incidences this month. I watched a young squirrel [left] rummaging around in next door's flower bed, emerging with a [crocus?] bulb in it's mouth. It proceeded to nibble half of it and re-bury the chosen bulb elsewhere in the garden [it chose the lawn area].
I've noticed that typically squirrels will only dig maybe 5cm or so into the ground to dig up something juicy. So if you're planting bulbs - dig a nice deep hole! I often leave a tub of soil open for the squirrels to dig/play in [a sort of designated play area, in an attempt to keep them away from sensitive areas]. Recently I've taken to hiding/burying some hazelnuts in the tub to see how long it took the guys to smell the nuts. Answer? A suprisingly long time. Maybe nuts in shell don't give off a strong aroma in a way shelled ones do?
I'm not sure if its the weather or the upcoming breeding season but there are a lot of squirrels visiting at the moment. There are two that are particularly fluffy, particularly on the white tufts behind their ears. 'Chubby' [above & below] has particularly chunky cheeks and a rather rebelious hairstyle. There are two others that are much sleeker. Not sure if the two 'types' is down to parentage or the latter were born later and have yet to fully grown their winter coats
I've had a few people asking about Half-tail and sadly I've not seen him in nearly six months. I'm probably massively anthropomorphising here, but Chubby does seem to possess some similar characteristics to Half-tail and given his [Half-tail]'s prolific lifestyle, I wouldn't be suprised if he had fathered half the squirrels in the area.
So what with four plus squirrels regularly visiting, it can get a bit frenetic what with just one feeder. It is ridiculously cute when the guys are in the garden and I open the back door, as they all come running for a nut! I've stopped hand feeding them as they've been getting nervous and I don't want them to bite out of fear. One was pretty confident when he got to the open door before I was ready with the nut box and nearly came in!
It is also pretty cool seeing them bounce in the air from surprise of another squirrel - they'll often leap onto something nearby to get away, be it wall, unstable plant pot, barrel pond....
A less seen/documented interaction is 'Kung Fu Squirrel' [below] when the defendent must summon his inner chi and cast it on the interloper, causing him to expose his vulnerable nether-regions.
We've also [somewhat surprisingly] still been getting hedgehogs. I think they are getting a bit confused by the clocks changing [or I guess its possible they don't pay attention to it at all]. One morning at 6.45am we had a spiky visitior to the peanut feeder, I mean, to be fair it was still dark.
Earlier in the month, these two [right] were caught on the trail camera - literally never had them sharing from a bowl before!!
And so [given my timeliness in writing previous blogs, and the unlikeliness that I will get another post done before Christmas], let me take the opportunity to wish all my readers a Happy Christmas! May your holidays be filled with interesting and unique wildlife experiences!
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