Not showing the Bird feeder and Squirrel nest as mentioned on the forum is down to me being a bit lazy. In between the camera and the feeders there are a large amount of bramble, that grows into the view of the camera. I do try to knock it back, but unfortunately they are very large bushes and it is difficult to knock the middle down as it is so far in. The easy option would be to put weed killer on them, but the Badgers have made their runs in them. We will be cutting the hedges shortly and they will be cut back them. The squirrel haven’t been using the feeder very much, in the past month or so. Where I would normally need to fill the feeder every two days, it has stayed nearly full for weeks. This time of year the Squirrels will be getting ready for the Winter, eating and stashing away the Hazel and Sweet Chestnut, of which this year there are more on the trees than I have ever seen at Denbury. I will get my Lads to knock the bramble back over next few days.
As we walked down the valley this afternoon with Tass and Kye the Sky was full with Swallows flying, strengthening themselves for their migration. I have never noticed it before, like it was today. They must have been bred on the farm, so there must have been a lot of nests that we missed, when we where looking for nest for the webcams. How they don’t crash into each other when they are darting in between each other I really don’t know.
I was telling you what webcams we are hoping to be doing soon. One that I tried on the farm last year, was with the Bats that we have in the farm house loft. You have no doubt seen that we do have a lot of Bats on the farm. On the cameras around the lake and valley there are always many to be seen. When I go to feed the Badgers of a night there are also many flying about. This time of year from our lounge window we can see them coming and going from our roof space, but when I go into the loft to look for them I can never find any, although some years ago when ever I had to go into the loft, there were many flying about up there. There are also a lot of the Bat dropping up there. I set a camera up in the loft thinking that I would see them flying around, that was a complete waste of time. I don’t know what type of Bats that we have at Denbury, by the different sizes of the Bats that I have seen on the camera when on the lake, there must be more than one type here.
There is a lot of baking of fruit pies this time of year, on the farm. We do get quite an assortment of fruits here. Plumbs, Damsons, Gooseberries, a variety of Apples from the Orchard and Blackberries. I am surprised that there are so many Blackberries after we had a lot of flowers and no fruit during the summer. This year there is a lot more fruit than normal.
Alex asked about the Horses, for those who may of missed their names when I told you a while back, the big Dark Bay is Arnie a 17.3hh Dutch Warmblood, the Palomino is Breeze our 14.2hh three quarter Arab, Lady with her Foal Willow are Thoroughbreds, the Bay is Bliss a yearling, as is the smaller Dark Bay Misty, both of which are also Thoroughbreds.