Hi Nic & everybody
Wow, lots of hedgehogs everywhere by the sound of it. Great to hear as so many people never see one their entire lives. I’m so glad you have an early visitor Nic.
Frogs lay spawn in small puddles sometimes then the water dries up & the spawn dies with it, yours are lucky they have you to top up the water. I suppose any port in a storm, they have fewer & fewer places every year. Guess things will be interesting frogwise for you, my tiny pond has none & just as well as it’s a very busy bird bath.
I discovered from my camera that a totally new cat was doing an amazing limbo & twisting itself into a ridiculous shape to successfully enter the ‘cat proof’ feeder even after all my adaptations. Spent a lot of time with pieces of wood, a shelf support, drill, screws, a brick or two & finally I have a totally cat proof feeder. I’ve seen the cat on camera glumly sitting peering into the impossible to enter tunnel muttering to itself! The simpler one at the bottom of the garden seems to be cat proof using a combination of plants in pots, bricks, general position etc. Probably should set up the camera to check actually! Usually crumbs left & poo which indicates hogs eating the food as cats lick up all the crumbs.
I was surprised a night or two ago to open the feeder lid at 18.00 when it was still pretty light to put food in & see a very large hog in the middle section looking up at me waiting for tea! I closed the lid a moment then opened it again & it had very obligingly moved into one of the entrance hallways so I was able to put the lino floor in & the food dishes. Came back up the garden 5 minutes later to the sound of happy crunching & when it went quiet later I put the water dish in too & topped up the food.
Monday night I sat out by the nesting box as the light went & just after twilight got going around 18.30 out came the very large hog & set off trundling round the border. Tuesday I spotted it already out wandering outside the feeder around the same time.
Pigeon still coming, flying to my hand & even landed on my back when I was bent over doing some gardening last week! Bit of a surprise…
Sounds like we have an exciting Spring ahead of us but as you say Nic not everyone sadly . Terrible times yet again, hope somehow it’s resolved soon, such a waste of life.
