Hi Annie
Digger misses a night now and then and gets me worried! But the last few nights she has been turning up like clockwork. It is a bit of a worrying time, at the moment, as there is a building site nearby with great trenches dug. At least one of the female hogs used to go through that garden, so I am so relieved each night when the regulars turn up. I think there might actually be 3 hoglets, it’s just that I have only seen 2 together. That might explain the confusion re. Girls or boys. Still no idea who they belong to.
I left the lawn uncut for a couple of weeks when the weather was warm and it wasn’t growing much anyway. There are loads of clover flowers and it seemed a shame to deprive the bees. Interesting thing was that the hogs instead of rushing up and down the path so much, have been making detours over the lawn and some doing some foraging there. The hoglets, especially seem to have been liking it. So when I did the mowing, I left patches a bit longer and they are still making detours. The birds seem to like it as well, I think probably eating seeds as well as worms. So I think I might start a new regime of leaving different parts long, but not too long. A bit tricky doing the mowing – the lawn isn’t very big anyway – but worth it, I think. They may have been doing the same other years, but I didn’t know about it before the cam was there, so it is doing a good job.
The baby birds are growing fast. The young starlings are beginning to get their spots, and some of them look quite interesting in half and half plumage. I think it must have been a bumper year for starlings here. I have to make sure the poor blackbirds get a bit of food before the ‘flock’ of starlings appear. They are a bit much for the blackbirds en masse. Love your description of the jackdaws doing headstands!
Strangely, I haven’t been seeing so many slugs on my patio, but have been finding dead ones in the water butts. Really yuk! I don’t know how on earth they get in there as the lids are a very tight fit, so they can only come down the guttering. Are there really loads of slugs living on the roof – what a horrid thought.
I hope you manage to get a camera sorted out soon and that you find there really are lots of hogs in your garden, munching happily away on the natural food you are providing for them.
