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[babyjane]

our little dog used to be a great squirrel chaser.  We would only have to say 'squirrel' or 'quick quick' and he would hurtle down the garden barking and looking as big as he could  .  How he is elderly, arthritic and deaf and we could shout 'quick, squirrel' as much as we liked and he just looks at us.

[CLKD]

.... probably thinking 'do it yourself' 

There's a magpie in our garden regularly, the blackbird was 'shouting' at it one morning - so it had found the nest  .  Don't think it found the eggs/fledglings though.  I was going to cook up some old eggs for it yesterday but the eggs had gone off 

[Elizabethrose]

Well these poor little robins must be exhausted. They are still feeding the fledglings and at the same time building a new nest. It's about 3 feet above the first. I wonder why they don't use the same nest? They are devouring the Flutterbutter, I love Robin food and seeds from the feeder.
I've watered a few times this week and they have followed me round almost tripping at my heels, digging behind me as I move.

[dazned]

I read that as....... I love robin food and seeds from the feeder !!

 

[Elizabethrose]

I'll eat virtually anything dazed, but don't think I'd go that far!

[Mbrown001]

Saw seals for the first time this year. Then are so cute and whiskery and come very close to the shore. They bask on the rocks further up the coast.

They must move away in the winter but there were are least 10 bobbing around.

My summer will be complete when I see the porpoises arrive back in our bay.

Mrs Brown

[Elizabethrose]

We see them a lot in Cornwall along with basking sharks and sometimes if we're lucky dolphins. It never fails to absolutely delight me. x

[CLKD]

........ like Dazned I read the same 

Off to clear the ponds of weed.

[Taz2]

Well these poor little robins must be exhausted. They are still feeding the fledglings and at the same time building a new nest. It's about 3 feet above the first. I wonder why they don't use the same nest? They are devouring the Flutterbutter, I love Robin food and seeds from the feeder.
I've watered a few times this week and they have followed me round almost tripping at my heels, digging behind me as I move.

They always build a new nest ER. I think that the old one is more detectable to predators due to the smelliness of previous nestling upbringing!

Taz x

[Elizabethrose]

Fascinating! Poor little fellas just don't stop, it's like a production line.

The fledglings are much more visible now, early on they spend most of their time tucked away amongst the shrubs. There appear to be three so I don't know whether any were lost but all are flying well now, after a couple of slamming into window mishaps! The blue tits seem to have disappeared with theirs, haven't seen them in about a week.

Pesky parakeets are driving me to drink. Clapping usually makes them fly away but now I'm left with the belligerent ones that just turn and look at me and will only skedaddle when I run towards them like a mad woman. I'm going to have to pull out the wine gums and catapult I think.

[Elizabethrose]

Spoke too soon, blue tits are back! Loads of them, seems like the two broods together x

[Taz2]

I've had the sad task of taking a hedgehog to be euthanased today. It's three years since my hedgehog visitors disappeared due to a young badger disembowelling two of them. Last night I heard a rustling under the bushes but not so much a pitter patter rustle of something walking but more a slithering sliding rustle. Me being me I went and grabbed a torch so I could find out what it was and there was this lovely hedgie but obviously in a bad way. I went back into the house for a towel and brought him back in for a proper look. It was obvious that he couldn't use his right back leg and his left one didn't look too good either but, worryingly, he also didn't register any pain when I pinched his feet. He was very cold. I put him in the large cat carrier with a saucer of cat food and some water then balanced in on top of two hot water bottles, placed it on top of towels on the spare bed, covered it with an old duvet cover and left him to it. I crept in twenty minutes later to hear lovely slurping and lip smacking noises coming from the carrier so at least I knew he would have a full tummy.

In the morning he had done what all hedgies do overnight when confined. His water bowl was upside down. The little hand towel had been draped in the food bowl and he had obviously wrapped himself in that - they love to wrap themselves up in towels or similar - the newspaper had been shredded and lots of it was outside the carrier. I phoned the local wildlife hospital who agreed to look at him but didn't hold out much hope saying it sounded like a spinal injury. They took some time to look at him - puzzled like I was as to  how he couldn't use his hind legs but they were still warm not cold as they should be if there was a spinal frature - but decided that there would be no hope for him so off I went to the vets. I can't praise the Vets for Pets team highly enough. They too were really puzzled as to what was wrong but didn't want to put him to sleep unnecessarily so they x-rayed him and then called me in to have a look. He had a spinal break just below his chest level so there was no way it could ever repair. I felt so sad as they put him to sleep but far better that than him dragging himself around cold and hungry.

The vet thought that the only way he could have sustained such an injury was for something to have been dropped onto his back or for him to have been stood on.

Taz x 

[CLKD]

So sad when they are so rare - I worry that I will stand on 'ours' in the dark so try to have a torch to hand when I take meal worms out each night.

[Taz2]

Sensible idea CLKD

Taz  x

[Elizabethrose]

Oh Taz, how very sad. It sounds like you've had to do this kind of stuff before.

We had an ancient hamster who had a stroke and lost the use of his back legs. It nigh near broke my heart taking him to the vets. He was an adorable little fella. I remember sitting up with him on his last night feeding him water through a dropper, waiting for the vets to open. It was absolutely heartbreaking. x