Blog - Page 57 of 109 - Farm Holiday Cottages - Fishing and Wildlife Holidays

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.

There are five new photographs on the Photo page from number six.

Finnegan the squirrel. Sent in by Elsie. Some person that Lynne has a lot in common with.

Debby Cantlon, who plans to release Finnegan, the young squirrel, back into the wild, bottle-fed the infant squirrel after it was brought to her house. When Cantlon took in the tiny creature and began caring for him, she found herself with an unlikely nurse’s aide: her pregnant Papillion, Mademoiselle Giselle. Finnegan was resting in a nest in a cage just days before Giselle was due to deliver her puppies. Cantlon and her husband watched as the dog dragged the squirrel’s cage twice to her own bedside before she gave birth. Cantlon was concerned, yet ultimately decided to allow the squirrel out and the inter-species bonding began.
Finnegan rides a puppy mosh pit of sorts, burrowing in for warmth after feeding, eventually working his way beneath his new litter mates. Two days after giving birth, mama dog Giselle allowed Finnegan to nurse; family photos and a videotape show her encouraging him to suckle alongside her litter of five pups. Now, Finnegan mostly uses a bottle, but still snuggles with his ‘siblings’ in a mosh pit of puppies, rolling atop their bodies and sinking in deeply for a nap. Finnegan and his new litter mates, five Papillion puppies, get along together as if they were meant to.

Black Swans taken at Cricket St Thomas. Vicky.

The first Geese at Denbury. Vicky.

Elaine the name of the dark bay horse is Arnie. He is 17.3hh. We bought him about seven years ago from an advertisement in a daily West Country newspaper. We very rarely buy the paper. The advert for him was tucked away at the bottom of the page in the corner that could very easily be missed, I should think a lot of potential Horse buyers did. I could never forget what it read. 17.3hh Dutch Warm Blood x thoroughbred. 9 years old Gelding, Dark bay. Done every thing.

There are five new photographs on the Photo page from number one that are all from Lindsay.

Mt Collon near Arolla in Switzerland. Lindsay.

Aberdeen beach,North East Scotland. Lindsay.

The little wrens were being coaxed out of the box.There were 7 altogether. Lindsay.

My daughter sent these from Switzerland for you to see. Lindsay

Thought you could send these to Denbury. The H`erens breed (you need to put a speach mark over the first letter e to pronounce it properly) will meet in the meadows as one big herd and go head to head to win a hierarchy. They are a very strong breed (the females look like bulls, esp the brown one in my picture) and various herds are scattered throughout the valley. With our herd just one cow has a bell whereas in other herds, they all wear them. Don’t appear to be used as milkers, more to graze the meadows.

There are five new photographs on the Photo page from number eleven that are all from Lynne.

Rhododendrons at Picton castle. Lynne.

Calla lily ? Lynne.

Swampy area at Picton castle. Lynne.

St Govans Head, Pembrokeshire. Lynne.

Water coming from overflow pipes at a reservoir in Pembrokeshire Lynne

There are five new photographs on the Photo page from number six that are all from Vicky.

Goldfinch taken in my garden. Vicky.

A pair of black swans and there signets taken at Cricket St Thomas. Vicky.

A coot feeding her babies taken at Mapperly in ilkeston. Vicky.

A photo of my first passion flower this year. Vicky.

A Lime Hawk Moth that i took last year in my garden. Vicky.

We noticed that Gypsy had quite a large lump and a cut on her offside rear leg. It thought that it was probably a kick from one of the other Horses when they were having a run about. This evening when we let the Horses in for their feed Emmi had a kick on one of her rear leg. When we let the Horses out Gypsy was by the gate and she has got a kick mark on her nearside rear leg. Gypsy must have got the injury this afternoon as she was sitting on her own when I put the Horses on the webcams this afternoon.

Thinking back over the last couple of days I remembered that I had caught a quick glimpse of the Horses running around in what looked like a fun session that they sometimes have. When they stopped Breeze backed in to the group in what looked like a half hearted threat, or was it. I haven’t taken the chance. Breeze is being kept in for the night as she may be up to her old tricks again, trying to be the boss again. Trouble is when she decides that all is not going as she wants she starts to Herd all of the Horses up. That alright as long as she is not being a bully. Horses instinctively have leaders and they will give threats to show that they are.

As last year before we let Breeze out in the Field with the other Horses, we sectioned her off behind an electric fenced area so that she got use to the Mares with their Foals and Willow and Gypsy. As every year we let the battery on the electric loose its charge, eventually Breeze goes through the fence and joins the other Horse. This year she was the best that she had been. No running around it was just a nice herd,. It doesn’t seem to have lasted going by the minor injuries that Emmi and Gypsy have. We will section Breeze off behind an electric fenced area again tomorrow. Hopefully it will calm he down.

We cant take the chance with the Foals if there are arguments between the Horses. I should think that it is Emmi that Breeze disapproves of. When Willow and Gypsy play with the Foals they naturally will get close to the Mares, Breeze will then try to keep them away from Emmi and that is when the running around and kicking starts. Mind you I could well be wrong and it is not Breeze. Though the Horse field is calm tonight.

Farm Holiday Cottages – Fishing and Wildlife Holidays

There are five new photographs on the Photo page from…

There are five new photographs on the Photo page from…

There are five new photographs on the Photo page from…

There are five new photographs on the Photo page from…

There are five new photographs on the Photo page from…

There are five new photographs on the Photo page from…

There are five new photographs on the Photo page from…

There are five new photographs on the Photo page from…

There are five new photographs on the Photo page from…

There are five new photographs on the Photo page from…