Home: Ratty and the Bird Bath - November 2017
Although I we saw lots of insects this year it's no comparison to past years when they were a plague [Ed: No he is not going that far bibically back]. Butterflies are a rare sight these days, we have a large yellow butterfly bush (Buddleja utahensis) where we can observe them when they are around. We leave the autumn leaves on the flowerbeds, hang flowerpots with straw upside down in the trees to give earwigs a winter quarter.
We use to feed the birds all year round until H observed last spring a large brown rat (Rattus norvegicus) sitting under our apple tree eating what was thrown out of the feeders by the birds above it.
I was sent out to 'scare' it off. It turn to me gave me a 'what do you want? - this is mine!' look, thought better of it and scampered off to disappear under the neighbours patio where we now believe the rest of the clan lives. H was not happy having rodents so close to the house, I was not too concerned at the time.
Some days later while walking up the garden path with our shopping I saw something lying in the bird feeder in front of the kitchen window [Ed: here it is with an example of a correct occupant]. It was a young rat lying there working its way around the perimeter having its lunch. It ignored us until I went for it. It was fast. It jumped down and was off in the undergrowth before I had made two steps.
We entered the house packed the groceries away and as I looked out the kitchen window there it was again having desert! This was the last straw and since then no more feeding. With no further sightings to date we are contemplating starting again at least for the winter.
It's a shame that we stopped. We had so many birds in the garden, some rare ones too. There was the sounds of twittering all year round louder that the usual dawn chorus.
Over the rest of the year we had feathered visitors looking for food and hopping around in the branches just where we had the feeders. They must have remembered where they were! We saw 'our' robins last week 'passing through' and that clinched it for H.
Will see how much bird feed we need. In the early spring and summer the birds would bring their young and were getting though 10kg a month.
Update: we started to feed again in December 2017 and now in March the birds are all back and it's high life in the garden again! We haven't see any rodents in broad daylight only telltale little neat and tidy heaps of discarded seed shells between the flowerpots.
To get the pictures below we have a timelapse Gardencam that is set at minute intervals. The result is an AVI file which I view with the VLC player and then capture single frames.
We use to feed the birds all year round until H observed last spring a large brown rat (Rattus norvegicus) sitting under our apple tree eating what was thrown out of the feeders by the birds above it.
I was sent out to 'scare' it off. It turn to me gave me a 'what do you want? - this is mine!' look, thought better of it and scampered off to disappear under the neighbours patio where we now believe the rest of the clan lives. H was not happy having rodents so close to the house, I was not too concerned at the time.
Some days later while walking up the garden path with our shopping I saw something lying in the bird feeder in front of the kitchen window [Ed: here it is with an example of a correct occupant]. It was a young rat lying there working its way around the perimeter having its lunch. It ignored us until I went for it. It was fast. It jumped down and was off in the undergrowth before I had made two steps. We entered the house packed the groceries away and as I looked out the kitchen window there it was again having desert! This was the last straw and since then no more feeding. With no further sightings to date we are contemplating starting again at least for the winter.
It's a shame that we stopped. We had so many birds in the garden, some rare ones too. There was the sounds of twittering all year round louder that the usual dawn chorus.
Over the rest of the year we had feathered visitors looking for food and hopping around in the branches just where we had the feeders. They must have remembered where they were! We saw 'our' robins last week 'passing through' and that clinched it for H.
Will see how much bird feed we need. In the early spring and summer the birds would bring their young and were getting though 10kg a month.
Update: we started to feed again in December 2017 and now in March the birds are all back and it's high life in the garden again! We haven't see any rodents in broad daylight only telltale little neat and tidy heaps of discarded seed shells between the flowerpots.
To get the pictures below we have a timelapse Gardencam that is set at minute intervals. The result is an AVI file which I view with the VLC player and then capture single frames.
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