Hi Annie
Am glad you are still around – I was beginning to wonder whether everyone else was hibernating – it’s been so quiet on Hedgehog Street!
Still no Digger, I am afraid. Also another adult female. The rat, and younger smaller rat which appeared one night, have disappeared as well. I just hope there is no connection. It is always a worry when rats appear that someone might put down poison or traps and not take care. I hope it is because they are having early hoglets, but Digger hasn’t visited for over a week now. The one remaining girl came back last night, thankfully, after an absence of 2 days. She is normally a very loyal patron of my hog pub so that was worrying too. The fourth girl, I haven’t seen at all this year.
Last night, at last, we were back to normal numbers again. There was one small one who turned out to be a girl, judging by her and Rascal’s behaviour. He must be more than twice the size of her, but he still thought she was interesting enough to circle for quite a while. She is still a bit timid at the moment, but hopefully, she’ll continue to visit. If I get to, eventually, recognise her, that is great, but she certainly doesn’t need to be marked for me to value her visit.
I had to laugh about a week ago – I have a big, fake stone, large, pot turned upside down, so covering quite a big area, acting as the base for a bird bath – and two hogs were circling. She got close up against the pot and he continued circling but took the pot into the circle as well! And he kept circling her and the pot for quite a while. That’s dedication for you! It was really funnier than it sounds!
Your young pigeon sounds fun. I had a young one here, a while ago and I always thought he was a typical teenager. He spent a lot of time lounging around. I even found him once just sitting there in the water bowl. He seemed ok afterwards, so must have just thought it was nice to have a good cool off. It is fun having the baby birds around. Like you say, the noisy, argumentative starlings are very entertaining. I love their eyes, they look some sort of robot’s eyes. The two frogs are, usually, still in the pond, despite the youngsters boisterous bathing in ‘their’ pond.
Good that the hogs are still visiting there, despite not being keen on the food. Maybe that is an indication that they are finding lots of wild food in your garden as well.
