Grow Your Own Magazine

Driving home last night, a 15 min drive on main and country roads/lanes.
Got tangled up in road accident...witnessed motorbike and car collision-all ok! names etc taken- bad accident black spot!
Now the nice bit....
Turned into lovely little lane....eeek young fox in the road, stopped and watched it eat wild plums that had dropped onto road. Beautiful!
working in my garden at dusk, along comes 'Sandy' the hedgehog, on her twilight rounds!
I am amazed at the 3 or 4 frog chorus sounding out across my very small- with a pond garden!
Sat watching the bats display with my mug of coffee, time to go in bit nippy now....ooops mind the frog jumping down the back steps.
In bed and there is a 'chinook' of a bug flying round the bedroom....it's a huge beetle, caught it before the cats did- beetle outside now. time to sleep...
Who needs Spring watch!
so my question is what do you see on a good day!

Lots of frogs, bats and swallows near us.

The swallows swoop low enough to skim your head in the garden and we find frogs in the greenhouse - I'm trying to encourage them, so they'll eat slugs!

The bats are great, they fly around at the back of the house and are amazing to watch

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"Its not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you" - Bruce Wayne

We've got lots off all kinds of birds - big and little, and loads of grey squirrels. Two best moments were seeing a great big, fat pheasant appearing in the garden last winter, and a little hedgehog who appeared beside the garden path about a month ago. When i turned around about 2 mins later he had completely disappeared - they can really move fast.

Oh and had some bats as well a couple of weeks ago.

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Leah & Andy

What is this life if, full of care
We have no time to stand and stare

There can be lots to see if you take the time! nature at it's best!

At the moment there's lots of baby squirrels darting about all over the place but a good time to see wildlife is when we're out with the horses. The sound of hoofbeats doesn't seem to frighten other animals off. Once we saw a sparrowhawk and a kestrel circling round not all that far apart. First light is a good time to look out of the window as on one occasion I was awarded the site of a family of foxes wandering around the horses in the paddock, Dog,Vixen and two cubs. I wanted to shout out "keep away from the chooks". Walking home along country lanes late at night I often pass the time 'talking' to owls. As the owls call, I call back trying to imitate them,after a while the nosey birds will fly towards me to have a look whats going on; sometimes even landing on the ground in front of me quizzicaly eyeing me up. Too many stories to tell. I just love the countryside.

Im going to try that this year if i hear owls.....I can do that with the frogs!
Me too, cant get enough of it!

We have frog and toads and a huge number of birds in the garden. We also get a sparrowhawk swooping through. I had a 'hit' a couple of weeks ago - we found two sad little sparrow legs discarded near the back door- Ahhh! Numerous butterflies and the house next door has bats in the eaves and they come straight out over our garden. (Bat poo on the recycling bin at the mo.) We have owls in the village trees and we often hear them from the bedroom at night. Loverly!

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Earth laughs in flowers. Ralph Waldo Emerson

www.vegheaven.blogspot.com

Updated October 12th

Daft question, but , how do you tell it's bat poo?

We have squirrels foxes and badgers and bats and owls and...various hawks and pheasants and ...

I am not keen on squirrels and foxes.. and mice and slugs and snails...pia.

It's dry - looks a bit like mouse poo, small black ovals but because it's made up of stuff like chitin from moths and fly wings etc it's unsmelly and reasonably pleasant. Comparatively of course! Our son is a licensed bat handler and we've had orphan or injured bats at home to look after and you get to recognise it. There's often a bit flung up the garage door which is white and shows it up well.

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Earth laughs in flowers. Ralph Waldo Emerson

www.vegheaven.blogspot.com

Updated October 12th

Depending on what hours I am at my field I can see all or a selection of the following ; Buzzard, Grey Partidge, Red Legged Partridge, Pheasant, Hares, Fox, Sparrowhawk, Kestrel, Field Mice, Oystercatcher, Weasel, Barn Owl, Tawny Owl. Pied Wagtails. I can also see Cormorants and Herons flying overhead and once - just the once I watched an Osprey passing over me on it's way to Loch Eye.
Then there are the ones that do not count - rabbits, wood pigeons, crows, rooks and geese - these don't count as I regard them as pests and are therefore legitimate targets for me and ma gun

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Rat

British by birth
Scottish by the Grace of God

Blog updated Wednesday 17th September

I'm in the middle of a (small) city and even here we regularly see toads, bats, numerous birds, butterflies, dragonflies, different types of bees and a multitude of other insects.

Absolutely as Headfry says - There can be lots to see if you take the time - wherever you are.

Claire

Washing the breakfast dishes I saw a dragonfly larvae clinging to the carex growing in our small pond. Rushed and grabbed the camera but it was an empty case Still delighted really as the pond is only 2 years old.

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It's not the growing old I mind but the growing stupid with it!

Three baby Hedghogs paid us a visit several nights running. While enjoying an apero. the last warm evening that we had I watched a Tree Creeper visiting a tree several times. When I looked further it had a nest in a small hole. The second clutch of Swallows have hatched in my workshop. Now have to be very careful where I work or I get ****** on. Bats behind the shutters as well.

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Gardening requires a lot of water - most of it in the form of perspiration. Lou Erickson, critic and poet

Last year, watched a (mad) bat flying around at mid-day, then got to watch the local Sparrowhawk catch its lunch! Stunning! Shame about the bat though

Saw a Kestrel over the house yesterday.

We also get foxes, hedgehogs, the usual garden birds and the occasional Tawney Owl and Kingfisher. Not bad for the outskirts of a major conurbation!

Fantastic.... Its lovely to read your postings, there is much to be seen.
Heaven!

All I've managed so far at home is a huge hedgehog and lots of mad bats - though we do see munchkin deer in the lane on the way home, foxes and squirrels and rabbits of course, and a couple of kestrels/sparrowhawks. Not as much as some of you .... if only ......

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Life may not be the party we hoped for but since we're here we might as well dance