Hi Annie
Nice to hear from you. Well the hog was here. He was visiting every day again, but has now gone again – hopefully to hibernate. So now it’s hogless here again! One other hog did appear briefly but hasn’t been back – and no hoglets, sadly. All very frustrating as the cats seem to have mostly given up, too. I’m still leaving food out – never know when a hoglet might turn up and a little mouse is making good use of it. Saw a rat one night and thought ‘oh no’, but surprisingly it didn’t go to the food and I haven’t seen it again since.
Funny you should mention a sparrowhawk. One morning I looked out and saw a brown bird sitting on the top of my tree about a yard away from a woodpigeon. Was amazed when I realised it was a male sparrowhawk sitting so close to the woodpigeon. Both seemed completely unconcerned about the other. Woodpigeon a bit bigger than the sparrowhawk, but even so. The sparrowhawk eventually flew off, but was back a minute later although not quite so close, but then it flew right away. Woodpigeon was still there – maybe one of those teenageer woodpigeons – like the one that used to sit in the water bowl! Lovely that you can see the sparrowhawks more clearly now.
Talking about woodpigeons, I had 5 in the garden when I put the food out this morning. There used to always be only 2 except when there were some young ones around. Maybe some of these are youngsters who will move on – hope so, I like them, but two are enough. The poor sparrows don’t get much of a look in until later. There were the 5 woodpigeons, 8 collared-doves a couple of jackdaws and a rook lined up on the fence – a bit scary for little sparrows having all the big birds around.
Good to hear you have had lots of hogs there. I hope they hadn’t really had a hair cut! Yes, it would be lovely to know where they disappear to when they aren’t in our gardens. Less worry, too! Or maybe not, if they are crossing roads to get there! Sad they aren’t using Frankie’s kennel, but I expect they will again, one day.
That garden that only strims once a year sounds a worry! Edges aren’t quite so bad – a bit more chance of seeing if there is something there – but still small things can stay hidden. But if they are done often, not so inviting a place to hide.
Hopefully you saw about the new petition https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/550379 Let’s hope this one doesn’t get de-railed by an election or something similar! Although I noticed there was another similar one fairly recently and judging by the Government reply to that I don’t hold out a lot of hope that hogs will get more protection. But certainly worth a try and maybe they need things to be explained differently to them.
