Thursday 14 May 2015

Red in tooth and claw!

Sitting outside in my garden is proving an interesting experience. Last week I saw the rooks that nest in my chimney doing their Spring cleaning. They would disappear and come back out tugging a tuft of bedding...drop it onto the path and go back for more. I watched this process carefully and when they'd finished I examined their bedding....mostly dried grass, some leaves and some hair....the hair was interesting...some of it was my colour of mouse but also some golden hair was mixed in. I don't know how often rooks spring clean but my golden retriever died three years ago....

Nearer to home where I can see it from my office is a small ceramic pond...I fill it with water and watch it go every Spring. It often has baby toads in it so I devised a platform for them to be able to get out after finding an exhausted one previously!

This year we have baby newts...two so far. I think mum must have left a few eggs behind!

I have put them a scallop shell to climb out on...home must be a proper pond a hundred yards away...

Apart from the bridge I am not interfering at all.....nature red in tooth and claw must be allowed I think...I have no idea what eats baby newts!

But the demise of quite a lot of snails has brought an unchristian joy into my life this week! Obviously the perpetrators were thrushes but I got up one morning to a whole line of smashed snails on my path dropped from a great height judging by their poor crushed shells.

All of this and I saw my first swallow yesterday.....

It's never dull up here!

 

2 comments:

Ray Barnes said...

Interesting that you have an unusual number of snail houses with no occupants. I have observed the same thing here, and so seldom see a thrush that I think it must be some other bird, or animal.
I have a 'resident' crow, a great spotted woodpecker and a jackdaw, as well as all the more usual visitors but have no idea who or what is eating the snails. Long live their appetites I say.
Garden watching is an absorbing hobby but the time available to indulge in it is limited.
Enjoy, and as Shaw Taylor used to say "Keep 'em peeled".

Revjeanrolt said...

You have got me thinking now.....I haven't seen many thrush around either....a crow might be the suspect....but in any case I hope they carry on!