There are five new photographs on the Photo page from number eleven. We are starting to get low on photographs.
Some more photos from Clumber Parks Steam and Country Fair. I couldn’t resist the photo of the two young lads working on their engine. Whoever thought to dress him in a “white” polo shirt.?? Another problem for Ariel ! From Judy.
There are five new photographs on the Photo page from number six.
Two more photographs of Hurricane Katrina from Elsie.
Clematis from Karen.
Puffin from. Jill.
Another photograph from Australia. Rose.
This afternoon the sun was shining and it looked as if the day was going to finish well, when from nowhere, without any warning by darkening in the sky came an almighty crack of lightening, immediately followed by the blackening of the sky, thunder and rain immediately over head of the Farm House. The rain was so heavy that we were unable to see more than a few feet in front of us.. The electricity went straight down that caused the webcams to go off. I went to put them back on until another strike of lightening followed. It only lasted a few minutes but a lot of rain fell in that short time.
I was tempted to tell Mary that we had eaten the Sheep, but I thought better of it. They have been out for a while. We had been meaning to let them out of the pen for a few months, but had not managed to find the time to make a secure area for them. The only reason that we had them penned in was because they were free range and wandering onto other Farms as our fencing is not really suitable for Sheep. As they are very friendly Sheep we have fenced off an area around the Farm House and Cottages and have let them be free range there. They keep returning to the penned area. The wire that we use for the webcam that the Sheep are on, is also used for relaying the webcams to the Cottages, when we have Holiday Guests, so I am not sure if the Sheep use the pen of a night. We have to try to shut them in the pen when we are feed the Horses as the Sheep try to eat the Horses feed. They are so determined that that are very hard to keep away from the feed. The other day I had made up all of the Horses feed in their buckets when Dolly turned up. What ever, she was going to eat. In the end I had to resort to putting a paper feed bag over her head for a few moments so that I could get out of the barn with the feed before she had eaten it all. It worked, she didn’t move until I removed the bag.
There are five new photographs on the Photo page from number one, all sent in by Lynne.
SUNSET AT BROADHAVEN PEMBROKESHIRE. LYNNE.
WEEDS GET EVERYWHERE !! LYNNE
PLANE TRAIL. LYNNE.
GORSE ON THE PEMBROKESHIRE COAST. LYNNE.
SOLVA HARBOUR (OUR FAVOURITE PLACE). LYNNE.
Although there has been a lot of Fish caught on our Lake this year, there has not been many big fish caught until this last week. In fact I was getting quite worried that something had been taking a lot of the big Fish, especially after the Geese and Goslings disappearing as they did. Usually you would very often see the large Fish swimming close to the Kingfisher branch. I was starting to think that a Otter or a Mink had been getting its food from the Lake. Fortunately one of our Holiday Guests on a Fishing Holiday caught quite a few large Carp up to 18Ib. Since the Fish have been caught some are now swimming close to the branch.
A few years back we had Otters who must have bred close by the Lake, as every morning for quite a few weeks I found the scales of Mirror Carp on the bank of the Lake. You can tell that it was an Otter by the sweet smell of their droppings that we found many of. If it had been a Mink we would probably had not seen any remains at all. It was not a nice sight as the scales were obviously from the biggest Fish that we had in the Lake and I had only stocked the Lake with the Fish a few years before. It makes me wonder what size the Carp would be now.
There are a lot of Predator for the Fish. As well as Otter and Carp we get Heron. Heron are indiscriminate when they are trying to get there food. Any Fish that moves they try to catch, it doesnt matter if it is to big, so often Fish are caught with injury scars that the Heron has inflicted. Another predator is Cormorant, I have only seen two at Denbury and one was only was a few weeks back. Cormorant are able to swim large distances under water, so they are able to follow a Fish virtually at leisure striking when it is ready. Our Holiday Guests that week helped us to try to dissuade it from catching the Fish, but the law does not give you many options to protect the Fish as most predators of Fish are protected. That is the reason for the Otter to nearly become extinct in areas of the British Isles. The Fish from the Lakes and Rivers were a food source to people, so it was neccassry to try to protect the Fish with Otter hunting.
There are five new photographs on the Photo page from number eleven.
Hope viewers won’t mind looking at non U K animals! We took so many this time. Here is a Kookaburra, Wombats (my favourites!) and the Penguins which are all native to Australia . The penguin’s are called Little penguins. David Attenbourgh did some filming with them once. Rose W’canton.
A few of us have this problem. One Sunday morning over our village. Not good enough!!Lindsay.
Another Monkey from Karen.
It is good news about any Badger Cull not going ahead. The National Farmer Union are not best pleased and screaming. It was a fight that they could not afford to loose if were to show that they were still a force in farming. They are not. They will keep screaming that a cull should go ahead even though there are better ways to reduce the incidents of Bovine TB, that are being shown to be working. More importantly is that the very great majority of the British public don’t want to see a Badger Cull. This is a democratic country, the NFU need to try to listen to what the majority want. The last badger cull was stopped because of the public outcry.
The NFU are shouting that they will try to get the ruling overturned, and that there will be a massive turnout outside Parliament next week. They wont get the ruling overturned and I wait to see the size of the turnout in protest. It is not the Hunting Bill that many Farmer demonstrated against. Most protesting as a case of principle. They were right to show their feelings, if you agreed or not. TB is a problem, but there are to many conflicting arguments in the scientific evidence, that it would be discriminating to take the chance of decimating the British Wildlife as an experiment, for thats what it would be, only to find that it was wrong.
I was quite pleased with the Goose last night. The battery didnt last quite as long as I thought it would, but it may not have been fully charged. One of this holiday guests on a fishing holiday, waded out in his new waders to put the Gordon in the water. We used a heavy metal bar to tie Gordon to, but as he floated about the metal bar some times got in between the wireless ariels that caused the interference that you could see on and off. Both the colour and infra-red were very good. I will put Gordon on the Lake sometime next week during the day so that we can try to watch the Swallows catching food from the Lake.
There are five new photographs on the Photo page from number six. All from Judy.
Photos taken at Clumber Park Steam & Country Fair on Saturday From Judy.
Tonight as long as it is not raining, when it gets dark we are going to put the Goosecam on. The intention is to park it a little way off of the bank. We may let it roam on the end of a line, or tie it to a stake so that it is looking in one direction. We will make up our mind when we see how calm the water is. The infra red picture should be good as the camera in Gordon is probably the best night view camera that you could get. It is the same one that we used until a couple of weeks ago in the Valley. We have never tried any thing like it before so it could be a disaster. If it is not that good I will turn it off. If it is interesting I will leave it on and It could last for up to five hours before the batteries run out of power.
There are five new photographs on the Photo page from number one.
Because you put Arnie’s story on Mondays diary i thought i would send in some photos of him that I took when opn Holiday in February. Vicky.
Every weekend (weather permitting) hot air balloons flying over our house.
Karen, Florida (USA).
As promised here are some pics I took of Puffins on Skomer Island. Jill, Epping.
Photos of the Monkeys roaming free range at Trent ham Gardens. Karen Stoke.
I should think that with the amount of photographs of the Monkeys that Karen has sent in, she has taken the photographs of every one there. I will show a few more over the next week.
The photograph sent in by Karen in Florida reminded me of the problems that Hot Air Balloons can cause in frightening livestock. It is not the livestock seeing them that is the problem, it is the sudden noise they make when they put the burners on. It has caused quite a few Horses to get injured and even die from their injuries. We first had problems when we had Ostriches. Being in a Valley they can come into sight above the trees before you realise. When the burners are put on the livestock panics. When it happened with our Ostriches they ran around the field in panic for a good twenty minutes. They stopped laying eggs for nearly two months. Fortunately we were able to get the Hot Air Balloons details and made a claim against their insurance company.
We were even more fortunate with the Insurance Assessor that the Insurance Company allocated. He must have had a very good job as he flew himself into Bristol Airport from the Channel Islands. He spent the day at the Farm learning about Ostriches, as this was the first Ostrich claim that he had been involved in. For a few years we kept in contact, when he would ask me what the value of Ostriches were for other claims he was involved with. He treated me more fairly than I had expected.
There are five new photographs on the Photo page from number eleven. All from CH.
Five pictures taken on a walk between Kidlington and Oxford along the Oxford Canal. CH.
The Kingfishers doesent seem to be using the branch in the Lake as much as they did last year. I have caught them on the webcam a couple of times, and was fortunate to have seen one of them diving to catch the fish. Last year they would perched on the branch nearly every day for long periods. When I have walked around the lake I often see them darting about and seen one landing on the plant on the Island. We have put a new branch near to where I had seen one land in the hope that it would use the new branches, As of yet we have not had any luck. I spoke to Peter at the Lock yesterday, and I mentioned not seeing the Kingfishers as much this year. Peter suggested a trick that photographers use when they are photographing Kingfishers. They put Fish into a bucket and put it into the water by a branch with just a little of the bucket above water so as the Fish don’t escape. The idea is that the Kingfisher will catch from the bucket. I asked one of this weeks Fishing Holiday Guests that when he is fishing will he try to catch a few small Fish with a net that I have given him. He is as keen to see the Kingfisher as much as we are. Only trouble is that the small Fish are not very easy to catch.
I am sure that a lot of you have seen the Fox that is frightening the Badgers away from the food most nights. I cant believe that the Badgers are allowing the Fox to get away with it. Usually the Badger is well capable to see the Fox off. After the Fox has frightened the Badgers off they are not returning for the food. Last night I went back up to the feeding site in the hope that I would frighten it off for the night, no sooner that I got back to the Farm House he was out again. He had on an hid somewhere in the bushes when he heard me coming.