Tag: feeder

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webcams

Sorry no photographs as we are still having problems uploading…

Sorry no photographs as we are still having problems uploading them again. We have tried using a different program but that is so slow that it times out before the photographs upload.

I noticed Vicky and her Mum who are here on Holiday for the next three weeks looking out of their cottage window earlier today, they told me that they were looking at the Buzzard soaring above. On looking I could see that it was above the Badger Field, I had noticed them for the past week hunting above the Field. It can only be that they have seen the Squirrels using the Squirrel feeder that they have been using for about the same time that we have seen the Buzzards above. We do have more Squirrels than we would really want but we don’t really want the Buzzards having the Squirrel that we are preparing the obstacle course for dinner. We will need to think of a way of protecting the Squirrels. The best refuge is for the feeder to be under a tree as are the Bird feeders around the Lake positioned, but the Squirrels would only need to jump from the trees to the feeder to get the peanuts avoiding the obstacle course. We cant put a cover above the feeder as we wont be able to see the Squirrels feeding. I will have to give it some thought.

I saw part of a program on the television a day or so ago about Squirrel being caught to be eaten. They were put in a sack and dispatched, I know that one of the dictionary meaning for dispatch is to kill but they only use the word to try to make the audience feel better, as they believe it is not such a severe word as kill. The thought of eating Squirrels makes me feel ill. They are rats with a bushy tail. I can look at Squirrels where I cant rats but there is not a lot of difference. There is an advert on the television for a supermarket with a chicken dish. We are told by the presenter that the Chickens are reared to RSPCA standards. I bet the Chickens don’t think that.

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webcams

Starting from number one there are five new photographs on…

Starting from number one there are five new photographs on the Photo Page

A photographer tracked this beautiful wolf for two hours in Yellowstone National Park to get this photo. He had this to say about it:

I tracked this guy for over two hours through the wilderness. He knew I was following him for sure as we would move from trees to fields then back to trees. After the first 10 minutes, it was obvious that he was a million times more agile

Categories
webcams

Not showing the Bird feeder and Squirrel nest as mentioned…

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.

Categories
webcams

The Squirrels have started to use the Squirrel feeder that…

The Squirrels have started to use the Squirrel feeder that can be viewed by the main Badger camera. Once we put a Bird feeder nearby, the Squirrel soon found the feeder. There were two on it this morning, having a push and shove to see who was going to stay. It is a good spot to get an obstacle course set up. I will give the Squirrels another week to get use to where the feeder is, then I will put up another post with a piece of wood between the two posts. Something easy to start with, so they are not put off by it. I saw one some years back, there were some difficult challenges for the Squirrels to do, before they got the peanuts, but they always worked it out.

We tried to move the sheep again today, they were having none of it. I have had to put a pen up, made of gates, and have started to feed them in it. The idea is that when there are a good few Sheep in the pen, I will close a gate behind them. I can then handle them to get them in a trailer, and take them up to the field that we have prepared for them.

Anyone who had seen last nights diary about the fish, and had seen the fish that I had on camera today, would have thought that I was romancing about the size of them. I looked a good few times to see if there were any good sized fish. All that were there were five to eight inch fish. Quite a few of them were Tench, the first time that I have seen any, other than what had been caught by people fishing.

Because of the number of cameras that are installed at Denbury, I have to have quite a sophisticated setup, that allows me to change over the cameras, so that they are able to be viewed on camera one and camera two thumbnails. I also have CCTV monitors that allows me to view any one, or all of the cameras privately. My television is a monitor. Without a Sky box I would not be able to watch television on it, but I am able to watch one, or all of the cameras on the monitor, I can also watch them in picture in picture. So there is not a lot I should miss. The reason I mention this, is that I watch the valley camera more than any other, except Lady’s camera. Just recently I have seen very little going on down the valley, which is a surprise, considering the area it covers, and with the woods on both sides. The IR lamps make the eyes stand out of any animal that may come into view. I use to very often pick up wildlife, but it has gone quite. Let me know on the forum if you see anything. After Lady has her foal, I will leave the valley camera on over night.

Categories
webcams

Sorry about the Denbury Farm web cams going down last…

Sorry about the Denbury Farm web cams going down last night, I did not realise until I got up this morning, and I don’t know how long they were off for. We had an automatic update on our security, that restarted our computers and turned the web cams off.

The Squirrels are back in force, using the squirrel peanut box feeder, and also the sunflower heart bird feeders, that are not put out for them.. I think that the Squirrel are eating the the sunflower hearts more than the peanuts. The bird feeder by the squirrel box feeder has a Squirrel guard on it to stop them climbing the pole, that it sits on, but it is to close to the brambles, and they are climbing the brambles to get above the guard, to get to the food. It does not take them long to learn how to get to any food, in any feeders once they know where it is. That is why I want to get a Squirrel obstacle course up and running. CJ Birdfood give us our sunflower hearts, peanuts and Badger food free, It save us a lot of money that we can then put into the web cams.

I want the Squirrels to use the peanut feeder that can be seen from the main Badger camera, there is more room to put up a biggish obstacle course in that area, unfortunately they have not found the peanut feeder there yet, the reason being, is that they first go to where the birds are feeding, then they find the peanut feeder. Well I hope that is the case, as I have placed a bird feeder close to the Squirrel feeder. We will find out in a day or two. that area is a good wildlife area. There must be more Rabbits there than Water-ship Down.

I was asked on the forum today, if we have any Pigs, Goats or Cattle on the farm. Since we came to live at Denbury, we have had a good selection of different animals, but now we only have Horses and Sheep. We have had Charolais and Limousine Cattle and Wild Boar, that you would say are pigs. We nearly got a small herd of Angora Goats, but fortunately a friend talked us out of them. I think we were only getting them as they looked so cute. As you have properly experienced at Children’s Zoos, they will eat anything. We have also had six Llamas, Ostriches and a Zebra. I must admit other than the Cattle I regretted all the others going. They all went for good reasons, none were not just an off the moment, good idea at the time decisions, to have them. We had a lot of good and bad experiences with them all. I will tell you about them every now and them.

The Badger with the bad leg has still got the problem. I can only imagine that it happened when we saw the Badger fight a while back. There is a chance that it had been bitten when fighting and that the bite is now infected. It could be broken, but going by the size of the dead Badger that we found the next morning after the fight, I should not have thought that it would have been able to inflict a serious break or wound as the injured Badger has. Unfortunately there is nothing that I can do for it, without causing a lot of stress for the injured Badger and the others in the sett, especially as the Badger cubs will be due to show themselves soon. That is of course if there are any cubs.