Wildlife & Gardens

Pasty.

 

Any chance one of them could get in the box?

 

I visited my brother and sister in law yesterday in Catfield.
I have never seen so many Daphnes.
Six youngsters came down when Iris threw out some oats,suet and dried mealworms. All very busy and hopping and birding around like blackbirds do.
Large amounts of tree and house sparrows too,robins blue,great and marsh Wilfs too and a fair few chaffinches and swallows to boot.
Wonderful.

 

On returning from the Ware Priory after my second jab I saw an object in the road.
I went back and was distressed to see a sparrow.
I scooped him or her up and put them in a box I had in my car.
Hopefully recovering at the nearest vet.
Fingers crossed.

 

Kind hearted.

 

Yeah right. Be honest, what does sparrow taste like?

 

I like to have a leg all to myself.

 

You wicked fox Fancy Filbert!

 

Excellent piece on the things kites put in their nest on the BAFTA winning Springwatch last night.
Included a tennis ball and some underpants!

 

Blue pair? Can’t find them anywhere!

 

Garden is black with adult and juvenile starlings.

 

After trying every trap and poison known to man, and having no success getting rid of our resident mouse, I finally gave in and bought an air pistol and shot the little ****er at the fourth attempt. All I have to do now is dig the pellets out of the skirting board.

 

Sounds like a game you could market.

 

I have a glis glis in the loft and ants in the stairs.

I called out the pest control man, and he suggested the ants will go of their own accord soon enough as it's flying ant day soon, so they will grow wings and try to go somewhere else.

I've set a trap for th glis glis but it's not gone in it yet.

 

I had to Google glis glis. It seems they’re edible, so that’s something to look forward to.

 

Yes I have another glis glis now after 2019's excitement (see #303 in this thread). Have seen it twice - they are so damn cute. Have set trap to catch, obviously it would be illegal to release it back into the countryside that it has come from, so of course I certainly won't be doing that.

 

I've been told I can shoot or club it to death.

 

I certainly didn't catch it last night, and even if I had, I certainly wouldn't have released it back into the countryside at 7am this morning.

 

Lovely!
We have three cubs,all out feeding last night led by 'Cub Laurie' who appeared on the evening that my brother died ( Wednesday).
That means more food needed!

 

We had a bit of a wildlife incident over Saturday night. For a few weeks I'd run the gauntlet of a bumble bee nest in an old mouse hole in the lawn near our bird feeding station. I'd have happily dispensed with a wasp nest, but bumble bees....they had a lifeline as long as i wasn't stung. Anyway, got up Sunday morning to find a 3 foot deep hole in the lawn with turf, soil and stones spread widely and a bunch of angry bees ! I guess our local badgers went in after the honey. Wasn't clear if they got it as the bees still kept coming and disappearing in the bottom of the hole. I tried to replicate something I'd seen on the net by pushing some wide pond pump pipe right down to where they were still disappearing and then refilling the hole overnight while they weren't flying, with pipe protruding, but it doesn't look like it worked :-(.

 

100% badgers, had the exact same thing in our garden a few times. Ground bees don't tend to be aggressive so unlikely you'll get stung by them.

 

Yes but I'd read bumble bee nests can get pretty large, though nowhere the size of a wasp nest in terms of numbers. If they feel their nest site if under threat, (and I was required to walk within a foot of the opening to feed the birds), they can attack and of course can sting many times, not just once like a honey bee...however it seems they are now gone :-(

 

Thank you HH24.
Very poignant sitting in their beautiful garden on Sunday with all the bird activity,especially a robin sunbathing on a wrought iron seat!

 

A few years back I dug out a water feature that the old owners left here, and underneath was a huge ground bee nest. I only realised when my daughter shouted out that I was surrounded by bees. Calmly walked away without any of them landing on me or stinging me, and that's when I looked them up and found out they weren't aggressive at all.
Once I found the bees I covered it over again and left them to it until mid August when they have all left the nest, then finished the work.

 

Yes "ground bees" rarely sting. Bumble bees can though, if a nest is disturbed, despite their pretty appearance !

 

Read something interesting about tomato plants this week. It was this:

Just keep an eye on your plants closely over the course of a few days. If the leaves hang limply in the evening, the plant needs water. If the leaves are limp during the day, there is no need to worry, that is a protective mechanism to reduce evaporation. Just keep an eye on the plant after sundown.

And it is just fantastic advice which I never knew before. Despite looking like death in the afternoon, quite often they're looking as good as new again in the morning meaning no water needed.

 

Everything in the Meister Manor grounds looks brown and shrivelled and that includes me.

 

James Wong wrote in the Observer at the weekend that actially depriving them of water enhances the flavour of the fruits.

 

I’m sorry and please don’t think I’m taking the piss but this is exactly the kind of thing I’d say in my best posho home counties accent to mock a mate if he was being a bit pretentious.

 

Fair dos.

it was useful advice, though.

 

Advice I shall be applying to the tomato plants in my garden!