A Welsh Woodpecker

I'm at my parents' house in Pembrokeshire for a few days (don't worry, the hedgehogs are still being fed nightly back at home), and have brought my wildlife camera with me. Unfortunately I don't think hedgehogs are very common in this part of Wales (too many badgers perhaps?), but I did manage to get a minute of footage of this Greater Spotted Woodpecker feeding on the peanuts in the hanger on the tree in my parents' garden this afternoon.

Unfortunately the only place I could position the camera on the tree was facing into the sun, so the picture looks drained of colour.

Tuesday night hedgehog video

Compilation of clips of hedgehogs feeding in the garden, betweem 10pm and midnight, Tuesday 26 May 2009. I'm sending this one to BBC's Springwatch.

Hog in a box

Here's a photo of a hog in the feeding station, taken just a few moments ago as I write this. He (or she) appears to be sitting in one of the food bowls!

A Gaggle of Canada Geese and Goslings

Please forgive another non-hedgehog post, but I just wanted to share with you these images of Canada geese and their goslings that I saw whilst on my bike ride along the banks of the Thames river this morning.

And here's a video:

By the way, the coots have left their nest at Folly Bridge now too.

Hedgehogs on a Sunday night

The hedgehogs seem to be getting used to the feeding station, although tonight from the start I put two bowls of food out - one inside and one outside of the box.

Note also a cameo appearance from a neighbour's black cat, who thankfully doesn't interfere with the hogs. I'm happy to have that cat in the garden so long as it keeps a certain other visitor away. (See last weekend's videos!)

Saturday night hedgehog movie - introducing the hedgehog feeding station

After watching this footage, I'm still undecided about the success of the hedgehog feeding station. A couple of the hogs didn't seem to realise that they were supposed to go inside it and just sniffed around outside looking for food, whilst others had no problems at all about going inside. After a while I put some mealworms around the entrance to entice hogs inside, and later on I moved one of the foodbowls inside nearer to the entrance. It didn't seem to make a lot of difference.

The weird thing is that even though hogs were going in the box, not much food was actually eaten. I wonder if it was a sense of mistrust, perhaps of things not being as they should be. Perhaps hogs don't like change.

Notice also the strange way in which the first hog inside the box acts. It looks like its being crashed into by another hog, but it is alone in the box! I wonder if it caught sight of its reflection and gave itself a scare.

On the positive side, I was pleased to note that the camera sees nicely into the inside of the feeding station. I was worried the infrared was going to bounce back off it and it would just appear as a white opaque box.

Hedgehog feeding station

This afternoon I have made a hedgehog feeding station from this plastic container (£4.50 from Wilkinsons), into which I have made a doorway in one end. I have put layers of hard-wearing weather resistant tape around the doorway so as to protect the hogs from any sharp edges. The tape cost £1.19 - also from Wilkinsons - so that's a hedgehog feeding station costing a grand total of £5.69.

So, why the feeding station, you may well ask. The hogs have been feeding in my garden for a year now perfectly happily and unmolested. Feeding stations are often used so hedgehogs can feed safely whilst cats, dogs, foxes and other animals can't get to the food.

In my case the problem arises on occasions when I'm out for the evening and need to put food out for the hogs earlier than I would normally do so. Usually I only put food out when it gets dark; if I have to put it out earlier - and bear in mind I usually feed our hogs on mealworms and peanuts - the birds come down and eat it all.

Now I realise that birds can easily get into the feeding station, unless it's something like a big fat woodpigeon, but I'm hoping that the food being in a box is going to be a deterrent. However, birds can be remarkably clever and they may figure out after a while what they've got to do.

All I can do is to try. I'm going to put the feeding station out soon and see what happens. There will be two things to watch for: 1) that the birds don't go in the box and eat the food, and 2) that the hogs DO go into the box to eat the food!

If the birds do figure it out quickly, the other solution would be to switch to putting cat food down for the hogs when using the feeding station. That would be one solution, although I know my hogs far prefer mealworms to catfood.

Don't forget the hogs!

I'd been out all day and when I got home I crashed in front of the telly and got the laptop out to check a few things online. I was so tired I hadn't noticed how late it was getting until suddenly at 10:30 it occured to me "I haven't put any food out for the hogs!"

I felt so guilty. I immediately leapt up and dashed out into the garden to dispense mealworms into feeding bowls. As soon as I had done this, I saw a hedgehog running across the lawn towards the nearest bowl. I was standing in plain view on the garden patio and with the back door wide open and light spilling out. This hog obviously didn't care. It just wanted feeding!

I also get the impression that they wait just out of sight for me to put food down for them. Often they are feeding within minutes of me having filled a bowl with food. However, they usually wait until I'm out of sight before making an appearance.

Wednesday night hedgehog movie

Here's what the hogs were up to tonight, rough behaviour included. After a scene fade at the 1:40 mark, we see a hog right itself after lying on its side. We don't see how it got to be on its side, but a good guess is that it was pushed over by another hog.

Return to Folly Bridge but the swans have flown...

It's been nearly a week since I've been to Oxford, and I was itching to visit again to see if the swans' eggs had hatched in the swans' nest near Folly Bridge. Here, pictured above, is the scene that greeted me today. An empty nest. The swans have gone - and I assume have taken their cygnets with them. I was really disappointed not to get to see the babies.

However, the coots in the next door nest are still there, and their egg(s) have hatched too! In the above picture we can just make out a chick (with a red beak) being fed.

Here's another new family out for a swim on the Thames.

At Isley Lock there were squadrons of ducks and geese to be seen, and watching these lovely fluffy-looking goslings almost made up for having missed seeing the cygnets.