Hi Annie and Simbo65
So sorry to hear still no sign of Cyclopsina, Simbo. But she still might appear again. I think I told you about the one who was missing for about a year and then turned up again. Re. Mr. Ejjy, it’s always a dilemma about what is best to do. Sometimes you have to follow the advice of others. But the only thing is, with him being a male, if he was a youngster, they do tend to move on, so that may be what happened. You did your best for him and that’s all we can do. Really good that you still have hogs visiting. You never know when a hoglet might suddenly appear, even if there don’t seem to be females around.
I was so relieved that Siili really was a female, as I suspected. Not only from the point of view of her being more likely to stay in this area, but also knowing what the boys are like biffing each other. I think she has enough to deal with without that sort of carry on!
Siili seems to be becoming more confident again and is making more appearances on video. Last night she was here with two others, a male and Igel (who is actually bigger than Siili, now). The male showed a little bit of interest in Siili – not sure Igel was all that amused about that – she was huffing away, but he ignored her. Don’t know what it is about Igel! Anyway, little Siili just leant over towards him with her spines, as if to say ‘don’t bother me, I’m trying to eat’ and he went off. I was so pleased to see that she didn’t seem worried about having the other hogs around now.
Oh dear, Annie. You don’t want baby sparrows dropping into Minx’s mouth! I suppose blocking it might encourage them to nest somewhere slightly safer.
I have quite a lot of marjoram, too. Yes, the insects love it. Mine is next to my wild flower patch a sort of transition from the ‘tame’ plants to the ‘wild’ ones, although to be fair the whole area is pretty wild! My front garden is coming on really well now with all the shrubs growing where the tree used to be. I often see birds in there and now there are loads of berries coming along ready for winter – if they last that long! I spent years debating about that tree. Never nice to cut a tree down, but it really was in the wrong place and I think the area is far more wildlife friendly now. It would be nice if a hog decided to hibernate amongst the bushes.
I’ve had a lot of white butterflies around as well. Might have something to do with my patch of ‘wild’ horseradish which they seem to love to lay eggs on! I may have mentioned it, but last year I had quite a few caterpillars walking up my front path to pupate around my front door. I love them all. So nice seeing them all fluttering around. There are a couple of buddleias nearby, so food for the adults as well.
Brilliant that the hogs are making such good use of Frankie’s kennel. They do seem to like burrowing under things. Whenever I have had them in them in overnight, en route to the wildlife hospital, they usually end up burrowing under the newspaper which is meant to be the floor covering. That teleporting – don’t know how they manage it. There are usually far more hog journeys down the path than up it!
