Creche Course in Child Care

I'm not sure if the beasts are having their young later in the year, or whether they're already on a second brood because of the warm weather; but in the space of about a week we saw several animals with offspring trailing after them.

First up were the foxes, picked up on our ring camera [much easier than faffing about with the trail camera, although placement is a little trickier as larger beast can knock it over]. The first video clip shows a youngster approaching a pile of hedgehog food, only to be thoroughly put in its place by a larger adult. If you turn up the sound, you can hear the younger fox making a rather peculiar clicking sound. This is called 'gekkering' and is a vocalisation that foxes use when encountering a rival or during play fights. Given that the first fox appears smaller, less experienced and is more submissive to the second fox - and yet the second fox tolerates its presence rather than chasing it out of the territory, I'm assuming that the first is the second fox's cub.

This seems confirmed in the second video, where the adult fox is being closely followed by the younger fox, while searching for food. This is at least a more sanitary approach than with previous vixens, who have urinated on the food to let their cubs know it's safe to eat!

Then it was hedgehogs. Apologies for the terrible photo! I was too excited watching them to try and get a better picture without disturbing the hogs. This parent appeared to be trying the same approach as the fox, trying [somewhat in vain] to get younger hog to a) leave it alone and b) fend for itself by hogging [pun intended] the peanut feeder. This younger did appear more independent than other young hogs we've had visiting, and seemed content to bumble about the garden unsupervised.

Unsupervised hedgehog

People often say that you don't see many baby pigeons, and while I've never found this to be particularly true about the feral/rock doves [as they nest under nearly all the bridge along the Union Canal in Edinburgh]; it's true that I've never really seen a baby woodpigeon. Which is surprising considering how often they...err...procreate. So, I was fascinated when this youngster [below] materialised in the garden one afternoon, trailing along after a rather reluctant parent. Its plumage is not dissimilar to a stock dove (Columba oenas), although it lacks the iridescent green patch on the back of the neck; and it is decidedly...chunkier.

Young Woodpigeon

It is always entertaining watching young animals and birds work out how the world works - figuring out what is safe to eat or what will hold their weight when exploring! The young woodpigeon spent a fair amount of time basking with the sparrows in the dust-bathing spot, the sparrows seemed to accept that it was just a bigger sparrow and appeared not to mind when it joined the flock for a short duration. Safety in numbers is clearly a lesson learnt early on! Some people actively discourage the larger birds from their gardens because they eat all the food; but I like to believe that encouraging a variety of birds is better for the overall health and wellbeing of the individuals. If smaller birds see larger birds [e.g. pigeons and corvids] on the ground feeding, they will feel more secure in also feeding on the ground as there are more eyes and ears to watch for predators. Obviously more birds attract the attention of the hawks and buzzards - but they also require feeding...

Deconstructed sparrow

[On a similar vein, I do think it somewhat hilarious that the building well-intentioned 'bug hotels' are marketed as such, when they could equally be considered bird/hedgehog restaurants].

The squirrel chicks are fully independent now. The two twins are filling out and looking quite chunky, especially with their fluffy winter coats growing in. Sassy's youngster still hangs about with her and she seems remarkably tolerant of her - clearly there's no food shortage to get territory tempers up! She [not completely sure on gender just yet] has clearly been watching her mum come to the back door for hand-outs, as she's very confident at both asking and receiving nuts!

I did get quite angry with one of the cats from over the road as they have a really frustrating tendency to lie in wait and chase 'my' wee squirrels. Sorry to all the lovely people I know who have cats, but it is extremely annoying that someone else's cat can just waltz into our garden, decide whether or not we have wildlife and not be held accountable in any way. We have lost several mice and young birds in this way over the years and it really isn't fair. It could be argued that this is nature and if animals are caught it is because they are unhealthy, elderly or simply unlucky. This I fully accept, but in nature [wild nature] seldom do animals kill and not eat their prey.

Most of the cats run like the bejesus when they see me [and they're in our garden], and yes, I actively chase them out. It's only fair - right?