Your day's wildlife

[albal]

Scene south of Salamanca

 

[Asa Post]

First badger cub sighting of the year two nights ago. Last year the mother had three, but it looks like this one is on its own.

 

[Spartak]

Early this morning I caught a snail 🐌 eating my Hosta.....
He was dutifully removed....

 

[rockyroller]

Early this morning I caught a snail 🐌 eating my Hosta.....
He was dutifully removed....

garlic & butter?

 

[slowmotion]

We came back from a week away to find that most of the small birds that usually hang out in our garden had disappeared. The reason became obvious pretty quickly. Magpies are building a nest on top of a vine-covered tree about 30 yards away in a neighbour's garden. Magpies raid nests and gobble up eggs and fledglings so the future looks a bit bleak. I read up about magpies this afternoon. It's perfectly legal to shoot them.
I'm tempted.

 

[biggs682]

Early this morning I caught a snail 🐌 eating my Hosta.....
He was dutifully removed....

I quite often put 2 or 3 dabs of bright yellow paint on the shells of big snails I find in our rear garden.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/TGdgvPHYGwaF8QGP6

 

[rockyroller]

We came back from a week away to find that most of the small birds that usually hang out in our garden had disappeared. The reason became obvious pretty quickly. Magpies are building a nest on top of a vine-covered tree about 30 yards away in a neighbour's garden. Magpies raid nests and gobble up eggs and fledglings so the future looks a bit bleak. I read up about magpies this afternoon. It's perfectly legal to shoot them.
I'm tempted.

any way to scare them away?

 

[matticus]

I quite often put 2 or 3 dabs of bright yellow paint on the shells of big snails I find in our rear garden.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/TGdgvPHYGwaF8QGP6

Is that to stop the neighbours rustlin' 'em?

 

[biggs682]

Is that to stop the neighbours rustlin' 'em?

I did it for a laugh a few years ago as we kept getting so many in the garden I decided to try and see if it was just the same ones or not.

A while back we were talking to one of neighbours about its a shame we can't tell the local hedgehogs apart easily and he mentioned that he had seen a couple of snails with yellow spots on so I came clean and told him they were ones that had been seen in our rear garden, he thought it was a brilliant Idea

 

[Mike_P]

Early this morning I caught a snail 🐌 eating my Hosta.....
He was dutifully removed....

My hosta is in a pot with copper rings around it to keep them off it.

 

[Spartak]

My hosta is in a pot with copper rings around it to keep them off it.

Is that just copper wire or something more elaborate ???

 

[rockyroller]

I did it for a laugh a few years ago as we kept getting so many in the garden I decided to try and see if it was just the same ones or not.

A while back we were talking to one of neighbours about its a shame we can't tell the local hedgehogs apart easily and he mentioned that he had seen a couple of snails with yellow spots on so I came clean and told him they were ones that had been seen in our rear garden, he thought it was a brilliant Idea

wow, great tracking idea. glo-in-the-dark paint might be fun too

 

[rockyroller]

last night's security camera recorded what I think was a large possum. looking down on it, it looks like a giant rat! especially it's shadow yuk

 

[Mike_P]

Is that just copper wire or something more elaborate ???

Copper metal bands that interlock on the ground put around the base of the pot

 

[gbb]

We came back from a week away to find that most of the small birds that usually hang out in our garden had disappeared. The reason became obvious pretty quickly. Magpies are building a nest on top of a vine-covered tree about 30 yards away in a neighbour's garden. Magpies raid nests and gobble up eggs and fledglings so the future looks a bit bleak. I read up about magpies this afternoon. It's perfectly legal to shoot them.
I'm tempted.

As kids of the 70s who spent thier lives in the countryside, added with the fact we had a dad who always loved sharing his love of birdlife...I never saw a magpie as a kid, ever, they were birds you read about, thieving magpies in storybooks..
Maybe in the 80s they started appearing alongside the main roads in tree belts around Peterborough, notable because id never seen them before.
Now they're everywhere, in the estates, chack chack chacking in the mornings, often in family groups, they're so commonplace they simply must have an effect on surrounding birdlife at nesting time . Corvids are quite brutal, intelligent and brutal in fact. I have no love for magpies myself.