Hi Annie
That is the trouble with wild animals. There are so many imponderables. Someone may have put up a new fence and blocked their way. Someone may be feeding them nearer to their home (if that is the case, hopefully with decent food and not just mealworms!), etc. At least one of the ones I am waiting for comes from across the road and then has to find her way through a gap in a terrace of houses. She normally comes through next door but one’s garden. They are fairly hedgehog friendly, so hopefully that should be ok. I hope she can still get under their gate. Unfortunately, next door was blocked by the previous owner, and the current owner, sadly, doesn’t seem to want to make a hog hole.
The cameras were only cheap ones, which is probably why the pictures aren’t brilliant, but you can see when there are hogs coming and going – and the cats, of course! Love your description of the cat! The hogs make me laugh – there is a gap under the gate but some of them squeeze under the lowest part of the gate only inches away. They also show a marked preference for using the path. I always thought they did, but the camera shows it. The only thing is the cams are not totally reliable. Sometimes I have seen a hog here at a certain time, but it does not appear on the camera.
I love the starlings, squabbles and all. The other bird we have a lot of here is collared doves. Also (thankfully only a couple of) wood pigeons who often make star appearances on the cameras in the early morning. The water butt blackbird actually outstared the scruffy chap once today, so perhaps the tables are beginning to turn again. I actually feel a bit sorry for the scruffy chap, he didn’t used to be scruffy – not sure what happened. He is one of those blackbirds who has a few small white feathers, so is easy to recognise.
Really hope you get some hedgehog visitors soon. They don’t know what they’re missing.
