Starting from number six there are five new photographs on the Photo Page.
For the first time for over six week we have started to get low on photographs.
Silver birch trees.
Looking at the sky through the branches.
Exmoor ponies grazing.
A newly dug bog with bullrushes.
Birch bracket fungi on tree stump. Jill xx
Karen the Geese have not been back since the pair returned. I am sue that a pair will nest. As soon as any show any signs I will increase the height of the electric fence.
The rats around the Badgers feeding areas are now becoming a major problem. Part of the problem is that the Badgers are not feeding all together at the same time as they do for most of the year, causing the feed that I put out to be available all through the night. It has given the rats the opportunity to have plenty of food through the colds spell where without the food and extreme cold many would have died.
I cant put poison down as I have seen both the Tawny and Little Owls take a rat. And of course if they catch a rat that has been poisoned they will also die.
We have tried trapping the rats with very little success. We have considered using an air rifle to shoot them, but on trying that around the Lake when we had a problem the rats were so fast it was difficult to hit them. We were able to poison the rats in that area and we got most of them with only a few days of baiting the area with the poison. Also the lighting at the feeding area is infra-red so it is pitch black. It is a problem that we really need to find an answer for.