Hi Nic,
Helga’s story is that we found her in the garden last summer in daylight. A quick vets trip confirmed she was ok but had recently had hoglets. So we returned her and started putting out food (we always have water for the birds). Not long after that we bought a hut, and, to our surprise she moved in. Until late October, when she vanished (we assume she went to hibernate in another nest).
We are in a built up area, and the house on one side of us does not have any other exit from their garden, (the house the other side of use has open access) so when she goes on any long wanderings we know which way she heads out. The odd thing was the duration of this one trip being much longer than usual. So I was just thinking whether she was looking for a mate, or is it a bit early for that sort of thing ?
Happily, we have a couple of wifi cameras with night vision, so I’ve been downloading and editing the footage each day. That way we know whether she’s in the hut and can keep an eye on her, but her routine seems usually quite fixed.
