You are all awesome. I'm rushing to catch up with writing, but I want to keep posting here.
In our garden we have a senile rat (which we haven't seen for so long that I think that it may have gone to the great tunnel in the sky), a walking magpie and now we have squirrels.
I spotted one, and as DH went to look as I picked up some stuff, he said, 'and there's another one! How sweet! We have a Mr and Mrs Squirrel.' There was a pause, then, 'actually, we have the Amber Heard and Johnny Depp of squirrels.' Apparently war broke out and there was a massive squabble. The sparrow squad took advantage of furry backs being turned to dive in and raid the bird food, but the squirrels have been doing all sorts of gymnastics all day as they stuffed their furry faces.
If you squint at the pic, taken through our window, you can see two of the terrors.
Our area is urban enough that squirrels and a possible fox are a surprise, but near enough to rural areas and farms to make it plausible to be raided by squirrels. Later on I saw one fall off the Matalan roof.
Bear didn't have a long day out as his friend had to go home early which was a shame. He has had an extremely early night after a quiet evening. Mind you, the quiet evening may have been because the books on music theory were delivered today. He was intrigued.
I would also like to say that yesterday, the video of the Queen having tea with Paddington Bear was about the highlight of my year.
Hugs and good health to all.
I loved that video of Paddington and the Queen. Made me quite homesick. Two very British icons.
ReplyDeleteI love watching the going-ons in my garden. There are squabbles and fights. We have a little squirrel with no tail. She (I think it's a she) is quite brave and rushes to get her food while others try to keep her away. She turns her back on them if they get noisy. We also have a (at least) couple of rabbits. We thought they were a couple but they clearly don't like one another. The one was giving the other quite the evil eye and then chased it off! Oh the tails I could tell you about the creatures in my garden!
Your inference that squirrels and foxes are uncommon in urban environments made me chuckle. We see far more of them in the town than we do on our farm. Easier access to food and no predators mean they are much more at home with no fear of humans compared with their country cousins. If you want to discourage the squirrels eating your bird food, you'll need to douse it with chilli powder. The birds won't care but the squirrels may find it distasteful. Personally I hate the grey tree rats because of their tendency to ring trees and kill them and there are far too many of them around here. Just one more thing to hate the Norman invaders for. I have no issue with our indigenous red squirrel. Unfortunately I have neither my father's skill in shooting, nor a gun licence, so I shall continue to shout at any grey squirrels in impotent frustration when they enter my garden. Foxes are a different kettle of fish. They killed our only litter of puppies by bringing distemper, killed our hens and took as many of our lambs as they could. We have no livestock now so my anger has dwindled over the years to live and let live. They come and snooze in our garden sometimes but I wouldn't want them to take up residence and would remove them if they started digging.
ReplyDeleteWe absolutely loathe grey squirrels as they do so much damage in our garden. Tony calls them fluffy tailed rats and is not averse to shooting them. My friend and I often see one run up the outside wall and into the loft of someone's house. I dread to think of the damage it's doing in there
ReplyDeleteYour garden is an oasis for the neighborhood wildlife! I hope Amber Squirrel and Johnny Squirrel will settle their differences more peacefully than their human counterparts!
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