One of our friendly hedgehogs bumbling around in the dark
You, my readers, have probably realised by now that I enjoy nature and love our garden (mainly created by my dear Marion) as well as all the visitors – well, maybe not all, in fact definitely not all.
We have always welcomed birds to our garden, providing safe feeders for them as well as water for them to drink and bathe in.
There have been some surprising visitors over the years, including a pheasant in the front garden, a heron (not actually in the garden but it perched on the roof opposite), and the occasional sparrow hawk.
Yes, I do consider the sparrow hawk a welcome visitor, it is part of nature’s broad spectrum and, like others, has to survive. I would prefer it not to kill birds in our garden but if it happens, it happens.
When you think about it sparrow hawks may kill sparrows, and other small birds, but those birds also feed on insects and worms, both of which can benefit the garden. If I don’t try to stop the little birds eating worms why should I deny the raptor’s right to its prey?
We also do all we can with planting to attract insects to the garden, this includes wilding some areas as well as planting more normal garden plants – flowers, shrubs and trees.
I don’t forget our nocturnal visitors eithers.
The hedgehogs are a joy to see on the videos from our garden trail camera. They bumble around at night, looking for insects and enjoying a snack at our garden café, or a quick drink, before getting on their way again.
The foxes are also a delight and at times I get glimpses of them from the conservatory, if I keep still and quiet, with the light off.
There are two kinds of visitor I do NOT welcome, however.
The first of these is the rat and I have made my views on these very plain and I think that after three casualties they have got the message and now keep as far away as possible from our garden.
The second is CATS.
The evil leader of the nighttime feline raiders – evil incarnate
I am not opposed to cats per se. We had one when I was young, along with our dog – Scrap. It never bothered me, it spent most of the day sleeping.
In the 70s we actually had three kittens which we called Tom, Dick and Harriet, and late on we had another called Missy and she was a right little missy at that, forever yowling outside the window letting all the tom cats in the area know she was ready and willing.
No, cats in their place are not a problem,
That place is NOT in our garden, eating food we put out for wild animals.
None of the cats using our garden as a feeding place, a toilet and a super highway to allow them access to other gardens to shit in, is a stray. They are clearly well fed, above and beyond what they steal from our wild animals, and most of them have collars.
It would be like people with a good job, a home and all the trimmings went out at night and barged to the head of the queue of homeless people lininbg up to get their one decent hot meal of the day.
No, as far as I am concerned these animals are the spawn of the devil and deserve a soaking from a water gun. They are lucky I am opposed to the use of real guns and to killing in general (rats don’t count)
Robin's Nest 