Hedgehog outside front door.

They are not too uncommon around our place. I guess being mostly nocturnal you don't see them too often.
Sadly a few do find their way into the swimming pool.

We had a couple in our garden a couple of years ago and found a nest down the bottom of the garden. The local kids watched them carefully and then after a while they were gone. Hopefully they just moved on.

We have had a succession of familes over the years. The young ones in particular are very tame, snuffling around your feet in the garden. When very small they are extremely cute. Sadly they are also pretty stupid and most years some or all have wandered into the canal adjacent to the house.

Yesterday was a good wildlife day, we saw our first Kingfisher of the year. We feared the icy winter had killed them all off. We generaly catch a glimpse most months.

Amusingly the canal near us is drained at the moment due to drought closures. A small runnel of water in the bottom is stuffed with varying sizes of fish and this appears to represent a finger-buffet for the Kingfisher and two local herons who have been very persistent over the weekend.

Bruce

We have regular visits from HH they eat up the leftover cat food. Their behavior has changed over time - now they tend to run away rather than rollup into a spiky ball - said to be a result of evolution - rolled up HHs get squashed on the road whereas running ones increase their chances of surviving and breeding.

Bruce - please put up a few pictures of your canal without water.

Thanks for the advice.

My young visitor had gone this morning, in retrospect I suspect it had probably seen a moth stunned by the security light over the door when someone had gone in, and come up the steps to eat it. It is also dry there so it might have just been enjoying sitting in a warm dry place after the evening's rain.

It would be nice to see it around again.

I also found a dead one in the garden pond a few years ago, I have put more sloping stones around the edge now. That is full of very at tadpoles, and few of which are finally starting to grow legs.

I haven't seen the three newts lately that came to feed on the tadpoles, but the pond is getting more plant growth in now so maybe they are still there.

Not the rarity of Bruce's Kingfisher, but it is lovely to see families of blue tits invade the trees making all the leaves shake with their activities, and take turns on the nuts. A nice time of year seeing the young birds and animals venturing forth.

Chaps

If you want to attract wild life to your garden, the best thing is to build a pond.

I have "natural" one in the front garden which is full of frogs, dragon flies etc.

I have a formal raised wall one in the back garden with an edwardian style fountain. It is no good for frogs etc because they cannot get in or out of the thing, but the pond is full of bugs and attracts birds and bees/wasps who drink the running water of the fountain.

The only downside is it also attracts a bloody heron and my natural instinct is to blast it with the 12 bore but its illegal unfortunately.

Regards

Mick

quote:

Originally posted by Derek Wright:

Bruce - please put up a few pictures of your canal without water.

Sure. Not terribly exciting to be fair but I'll take some this evening. Waterways are using the drought as an excuse to do some maintenance which normally waits for the winter.

Leeds Liverpool canal closes due to drought.

Bruce

Hedgehog is red meat, so not something I would eat. Try the Roadkill Cafe - http://www.road-kill-cafe.com/roadkill.html

Was quite surprised that Mick almost managed a post I agreed with, but ended with his usual flare. I think there is a good reason that shooting herons is illegal, but I'd better not expand on it.

Jamie

Please feel free to expand on why herons are a protected species. My house backs onto a lake with an estimated 4000 fish in it. There are several herons who roost on an island in the middle of the lake so they have a ready made food supply chain available to them. The bloody things still perch themselve on my garden wall gazing into the pond eyeing up my poor inocent fish. Therefore I regard them as a threat to my fish and my role and duty is to protect them.

I purchased a glass fibre model of an heron which reputably acts as a deterent, however one morning I caught a heron actually trying to copulate with it, so it acted as an attraction rather than a deterent.

Regards

Mick

I think it is because they CAN NOT READ, they do not understand concepts such as 'my garden', they simply live in the echosphere to which they are suited, and have no concept of the little plots of land that our species chooses to divide it up into.

We share that echosphere, and the key word in the sentence is share.

If you make a nice perch for them and offer free food to them, why are you surprisied that they use the perch and eat the food?

Jamie

It is perfectly legal to shoot a crow or a pigeon etc if stand on your own land and providing the bird is also on or above your land. These birds cannot read either, but for some reason that I cannot find, herons are protected and the RSPB goes all out to secure a conviction of anyone found shooting the things.

You can however be prosecuted if the act of shooting endangers public safety.

Regards

Mick

After reading about removing pigeons, which are pests around here, I discovered it is not legal to shoot pigeons, and I might suspect crows too. It is something that is usually ignored, but that does not make it legal.

One reason heron's are protected is that their presence enriches the world around them, and that is more than can be said of some.

Mick, twice I have started threads on which you have come in and posted things that are so against the thread's vein that it is quite hard to conceive why you bother. This one about a animal that might be in distress, and you posted about wishing kill other creatures.

The other thread in memoriam of someone who a great number of people admired in one way or another, and you posted about your dislike of them and your admiration of someone who just as many people utterly detest.

I am pretty sure that I will not be posting in any threads you initiate, perhaps you would consider such an action in return.

It might be an Aussie cricketer in disguise Jamie, looking for revenge.

quote:

Originally posted by Mick Parry:
Chaps

If you want to attract wild life to your garden, the best thing is to build a pond.

The only downside is it also attracts a bloody heron and my natural instinct is to blast it with the 12 bore but its illegal unfortunately.

Regards

Mick

I agree a pond's a great feature in a garden.

I'm pleased to say I managed to stop the Herons from gobbling up the fish in our big pond by using sticks around the edge threaded with fishing line at various heights and staggers. Herons can't land on water so this arrangement prevents them wading in and effectively prevents them from feeding.

Our local farmer who lives next door has no compunction about shooting Herons nor, indeed, anything that he believes transgresses on his land. Much as I admire Herons & wouldn't dream of doing them harm, nevertheless their population has increased enormously, mostly as I understand it because of the corresponding increase in domestic ponds.

It's pretty heart breaking to discover that some of your prize Coy have been eaten or severely injured by a Heron, but then I guess that's the price you pay for enticing wildlife into your garden.

We're currently inundated with Moorhens which are really aggressive creatures and chase other birds away. The babies are pretty cute though.

Jamie

quote:

Mick, twice I have started threads on which you have come in and posted things that are so against the thread's vein that it is quite hard to conceive why you bother. This one about a animal that might be in distress, and you posted about wishing kill other creatures.

Mick had a throwaway line at the end of his post and now you and others are all fixated on it. How come no-one pounced on the suggestion of eating the hedgehog? I can guarantee that if Mick did all hell would have broken loose.

In the meantime, and returning to the spirit of the OP, try reading here for information on looking after hedgehogs.

Cheers

Jim

Jim, you make a good point, and to give Mick his dues he does keep a wild pond and help wildlife through doing that, which many would not not.

Probably more of a reaction to a couple of posts Mick has made on other threads. So some apology due.

Thanks for the link, I knew about cat food and not milk for hedgehogs, but the other information is good.

Apparently one of the worst nights in the year for hedgehogs is bonfire night, the piles of wood are exactly the kind of home they like to sleep under, but when it is lit they often are killed.

I will have a look tonight and see if our visitor returns tonight.

Jamie

I also have a few bumble bee nests scattered around my garden because bees are going through a rough patch with the Varoa mite so I do care about wildlife.

My point about herons is that a bird is a bird is a bird and herons are the only bird that flies into my garden with the intention of eating up my goldfish. Hence I would like to shoot one heron in order to save the life of say 20 fish.

However they are proteted by law so I have to tolerate them. No one has actually come up with a good reason why they are protected. Being protected due to being a nice looker is a bit unfair on an ugly breed.

Regards

Mick

Mick, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. A Grey heron might not fit the human cute & cuddly category, but they are a bird that needs protection simply because without it gardeners with ponds, sport fishermen & errant youths with air guns would soon put the Heron on the extinct bird list.

Like many other birds who offend against our artificial human ways - garden ponds, grouse moors, pheasant rearing pens - they need protecting. We have spend years destroying most of our raptors, crows, magpies, now we need to get tem back to the way nature intended.

Incidentally the Grey Heron might look a bit stupid but it is a highly intelligent bird
I have seen them in Africa picking up bread, insects & other baits to attract fish into beak range.
A nieghbour in UK had a heron watching & waiting from a tree until he feed his Coy, the heron knew the days for feed & the days for no feed, and it knew the time of the feed - 07:30 as he went to work. All other times & days - no heron.

Protected birds list for all to see
......... UK Protected Birds

quote:

Originally posted by Mick Parry:
No one has actually come up with a good reason why they are protected.

Number of breeding pairs in the UK:

Grey Heron - 15,000
Carrion Crow - 800,000 (more than 50 times as abundant as Grey Herons)
Wood Pigeon - 2,500,000 to 3,100,000 (more than 167 times as abundant as Grey Herons)

I'm going to guess those numbers have something to do with the differential treatment. However, the short answer is that the government chooses to protect certain species because the governed are often too selfish and/or ignorant to do so on their own.

I should have added, the feed time heron with a taste for Coy eventually fixed himself.
It was found one morning dead & a large Coy stuck in its throat.

The neighbour also fixed all the other herons with a taste for Coy. He sold the Coy & now grows wet land plants & gets a free natural supply of frogs & newts & welcomes the occasional heron.

To remind you of what a heron looks like

Mike Heron sings The Hedgehog song.

quote:

Originally posted by jayd:

quote:

Originally posted by Mick Parry:
No one has actually come up with a good reason why they are protected.

Number of breeding pairs in the UK:

Grey Heron - 15,000
Carrion Crow - 800,000 (more than 50 times as abundant as Grey Herons)
Wood Pigeon - 2,500,000 to 3,100,000 (more than 167 times as abundant as Grey Herons)

I'm going to guess those numbers have something to do with the differential treatment. However, the short answer is that the government chooses to protect certain species because the governed are often too selfish and/or ignorant to do so on their own.

Jay

It would be poetic justice if you returned to this earth as a reincarnated goldfish.

Regards

Mick

NICE find ROTF
Deserves a big

ISB
Brings back smiles of those great times in the 60's - I think ??
I think I can remember thu the hash haze