Hi Nic
Hilarious story about the pot & hog dance! I’ve done the same with an upturned pot, the magpies like that one the best as it’s a deep bath. Not keen on them really as they attack the small birds, a baby blackbird died last year & an adult starling I hope was OK after I ran out to stop a magpie attacking it a week ago. All the birds were going crazy screaming at the magpie & divebombing it. I know they’re just doing what comes naturally but not on my watch!
Sorry to hear no Digger but you may be right & she’s already busy with hoglets, I hope so.
I spend a lot of my time trying to explain to people about not using poisons of one sort or another to kill things they don’t like, it seems to be the first thing non gardeners think of to solve the problem of not looking after their gardens & having a wilderness to worry about. Something to kill the grass they say but don’t seem to realise it’ll grow again anyway & they’ll be back to square one, also that the poison could affect their own cat/dog/wildlife etc.
Over the years I’ve learned to grow things slugs don’t eat, if they do eat something I just don’t grow it again.
I do litter picking & get mad when I see those plastic things that join cans together discarded without a thought, my Mum rescued a starling once wearing one round its neck. Had a lovely morning by the river Taff in Cardiff yesterday with Cardiff Rivers Group collecting the garbage other people think it’s OK to chuck in the bushes after they’ve stuffed their faces/had a drink/cigarette, not to mention so called disposable barbecues, drug bags etc.
Pigeon was waiting for me this afternoon & happily took everything I offered in my palm, very heartwarming.
Last night has a word for it which is SLUGS!!!! I saw a hog go under the cathouse to eat & come out again very quickly so thought another hog must be there as I could see movement. Went to check & was horrified to see a multitude of very large slugs of all colours everywhere on the ground & in the dish, no wonder the hog left in a hurry there was nowhere for it to stand. Never seen so many in one place. I put another dish in the centre of the peashingle equidistant from the borders so they’d have further to slime their way giving the hogs a chance to get there first. Assuming the cats left it alone as it had a few mealworms in (seems to put them off even if only a few in the dish) it was all gone this morning & the slugs had left the cat biscuits under the house. Yuck doesn’t go near how it felt seeing them all there, revolting.
Judging by the plants I find trampled there’s much hog activity in the borders during the night, probably eating natural food so you could be right about the not eating hog biscuits as there’s plenty to be found. The plants are growing so fast because of the weather & there are evening primroses growing like triffids in the cracks in the path, the baby starlings disappear into the leaves & rummage about in them eating goodness knows what & expect the hogs do too!
Hopefully hogs don’t mind thunderstorms as the one we had Friday night was the most stunning display I’ve ever seen & the thunder like nothing I’ve heard before, then the deluge that followed was spectacular too.
