Tag: squirrel

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Starting from number six there are five new photographs on…

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

We had a couple more days of photographs emailed to us today, but we still need more to be able to continue with the Photo Page.

These are a few pictures from the back-streets of Oxford, I have lived in Oxford all my life and used to think the place was a tip, but now I have a bit of time on my hands I have found there are still some very nice bits left that haven’t been developed. Clive.

Going by last night and today’s entries on the Forum no one, even the regulars saw the Buck Roe Deer in the Valley last night. It was by far the best nighttime picture that we have ever had of Wildlife in the Valley. I was pleased to see a Deer as I have only seen a few in the past few months. No where near the amount that we saw earlier this year and last or since we allowed the Cattle into the Valley.

Over the past few days we have also seen quite a lot of Deer foot prints in the Valley, again the first for a good while. With a bit of luck they are starting to return. Now that we have managed to get the Vally Camera working properly we will be able to see the Deer and any other Wildlife a lot better. We are waiting for a couple of new infra-red lamps that are going to be donated by the camera manufacturer. They will we hope light up the far end of the Valley as it use to be, if not better.

The Valley Fields are over ten acres. The best way to light it is to cover all directions of the Valley with individual infra-red lamps, but unfortunately that would be mega money. Now that the days are getting shorter it is important to try to see more night time Wildlife.

We managed to get David to put up another small addition to the Squirrel obstacle course. My idea of putting a tunnel on the first pole was not as good as I expected it to be. By what I have seen some of the Squirrels don’t even bother going inside of it. They just scamper over the outside. It wouldn’t be easy as it has no grip. I havent had a lot of time to check it out, so I am not sure if it is spoiling the Squirrel activity. Let us know if you think it is. This is the last week that Vicky and her Family are with us. Unfortunately David is not coming down this week so I wont be able to get him to add anything this week. Somehow we will try to add something.

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Starting from number six there are five new photographs on…

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

Thornton and his mate (one of Dolly’s twins) Vicky.

Photo of Arnie. Vicky.

A Sulphur butterfly that emerged today (11/07/2008). Karen. Florida.

Fireworks. Karen, Stoke.

Vicky’s photograph of Thornton and his mate tells a better story than I could in Wednesdays Diary.

Vicky’s boyfriend David made the first part of the Squirrels obstacle course today. It is a very easy obstacle, being just a primitive bridge of thin wood that allows it to have a bit of give so that it bounces as the squirrel crosses it. The Squirrels will have to get use to the new post and Squirrel guard that will stop the Squirrel from climbing the post that the Squirrel feeder is on. You can never tell just how long the Squirrels will accept it. When they do, they will climb the original post that the feeder was on and they will hopefully see it on the new post and cross the bridge to get to it. The original post without a guard always needs to be the first in the course. Once the Squirrel have crossed the bridge we will put another obstacle for them to conquer. After two or three obstacle the Squirrel will start to realise that there is always food at the end and they will find it. Remember that this Squirrel obstacle course is at its very beginning. The Squirrels will start to use it.

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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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We are unable to do the Photo Page tonight as…

We are unable to do the Photo Page tonight as we are still having problems uploading the photographs.

We will start the Squirrel obstacle course some time next week now that at least a couple of Squirrels are using the feeder in the Badger Field. We have a number of ideas for the course but if any one has any ideas let us know. We want to avoid using other Squirrel obstacle courses ideas, but as the easy ones, that we will start with are common we may need to copy a few. Our intention is to set up six to eight different challenges. Once we reach that number we will change them over as courses do take up a lot of area. If the obstacle post are to close the Squirrels will jump each post rather than use the course.

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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

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There are five new photographs on the Photo page starting…

There are five new photographs on the Photo page starting from number six, all sent in by Lynne.

ANOTHER SQUIRREL !! LYNNE

HOT AIR BALLOON ABOVE CHATSWORTH HOUSE DERBYSHIRE LYNNE

MILL STONES NEAR HATHERSAGE DERBYSHIRE LYNNE

NUTHATCH IN MY GARDEN LYNNE

MY TAME RESIDENT ROBIN LYNNE

Sorry I forgot to update the Photo page last night. Saturdays being the holiday change over day a Denbury, we are busy and it wasn’t until late last night that I realised.

I haven’t checked the new Squirrel feeder that we have put up for the first part of the Squirrel obstacle course to see if it being used, but from what I can see from the webcam it does look as if it may have started to be used. Trouble is the Buzzards seem to have found it to as you may have seen on the webcam at about 1.pm today. It looks as if it is one of this years young and it is very well marked. It must be the one that one of our Holiday Guests from last week had seen and mistakenly taken as an Osprey. As much as it would be great to have an Osprey at Denbury I don’t think that our Fish in our Lake would be to thrilled about it, and we wouldn’t be best pleased to lose any of our Fish.

As well as Wildlife Holidays we have started Fishing Holidays at Denbury. I am not a great fan of the sport but we need to have Holiday guests for as many weeks as we can through the year and fishing is helping. We stocked our lake just over seven years ago with quite small fish consisting of Mirror and Crucian Carp, Tench, Roach and Rudd. We had seen large Fish swimming around the Kingfisher branch but it wasn’t until this year that we knew just how big they had grown. Earlier in the year Carp up to about 10lb had been fished, and in July and August Carp up to 20lb had been caught with many between 8lb to 13lb. It is now even more important to keep the Herons and Otters away from the Lake. That is the benefit of people fishing. The Heron or Otters wont come to the Lake if there are any people around the Lake. We are going to have to fence to stop Otters or Mink. The posts are in place when we electric fenced the area to stop the Otters a few years back. We will be able to use those posts to put wire fencing up, with an electric fence wire at the top. With the fencing in place it will also protect the Black Swans when they arrive next month, and the Geese, if any come next year.

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There are five new photographs on the Photo page starting…

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

My mum,s catfish she has had it from a baby and has had to change the tank once because of its size.Eventually it will get bigger and the tank will need changing again.In most cases people will take them back to a pet shop as they are getting bigger or sell them on but my mum likes it that much she would never part with her catfish. Tina,Stoke.

Here is a photo I took on my ‘phone the other morning. It was just after sunrise and the sky was glowing while the edges of the cloud were golden. I was driving down the A38 towards Bristol to collect a passenger for the airport but had to stop to try to get a picture. The photo doesn’t do justice to the real beauty of that morning. Julia.

Thought you might like to see what I had in my garden tonight. We did try to catch it as it was being mobbed by a couple of Magpies. Elaine.

Buzzard. Karen, Stoke.

This is a red squirrel taken in Edwards Gardens in Toronto. You can see the difference between this squirrel and a grey squirrel/ Rosie’s Mum in Toronto

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There are five new photographs on the Photo page from…

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.

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There are five new photographs on the Photo page from…

There are five new photographs on the Photo page from number eleven. Getting short of photographs.

Hi I recently bought a squirrel box off you . Here are some pictures of squirrels feeding. Only the 1 squirrel so far. First time it’s taken food today. Kids have called it Rusty! Grant O’fee.

Daisey Fleeblane taken along the Great River State Trail in Wisconsin, USA. Penny, Chicago.

Fruit bats photographed in the wild in N.S.W. Rose W’canton.

Still getting the Starlings!!! Julia.

We had Gordon the Goose working on the Lake this afternoon. Unfortunately it was a last minute decision to get it working, as I had a bit of trouble with him when I was getting it ready this morning. There was bad interference with the picture. I tried various things to get it right and had all but give up on it for the day. A small movement of the ariel put it right. Jack and Brian have done a good job as it works very well. For some reason the picture has a lot of blue in it, but it is only like it by the Lake, I will sort it out some how. I will let you know when we try it out again. The batteries that work the camera and wireless connection will last for maybe five hours, so as soon as I am sure that every thing is alright, I will tie Gordon somewhere on the bank of a night time. It is an infra red camera that will be able to see in the dark as the other Farm cameras can.

As Swallows return to the nest of a night and and when it is raining for a while after they have fledged I will keep the camera going for a while longer. We have found another Swallows nest that will be easy to put the camera on to. There are a couple of eggs in it at the moment, so I would expect a couple more to be laid before the Swallows start to incubate them.

We put in a new branch into the Lake in the hope that the Kingfishers will start to use it as the original branch. It is sited close to the Island where have seem them land on the plants on the Island.

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Starting from number onethere are five new photographs on the…

Starting from number onethere are five new photographs on the Photo page from Lynne. There will be five from Lindsay tomorrow.

A FRIEND OF A FRIEND HAS A FARM WITH HORSES AND ALPACAS WE TOOK THESE WHEN WE VISITED LAST WEEK. LYNNE.

We have had to move the Bird feeders today to try to stop the Squirrels from using them. The amount of Squirrels using the feeders this year has got out of control. There has been as many as five Squirrels at a time on the feeders and the Birds are not getting a chance of feeding on them. Both feeders are now on poles with Squirrel guards on them, but a couple of the Squirrels have managed to get on to the feeders by climbing up one pole and jumping across on to the top of the guard on the other pole. Earlier this week one of our Holiday Guests had seen ten Squirrel at once along the track where the feeders are placed. That is to many. There are also Squirrels using the Bird feeders around the Lake. Soon after moving the feeders we noticed more species of Birds using them. We will put a Squirrel feeder in another place and show them on the webcams, it may even make me start the Squirrel obstacle course that I have been promising for ever. It will be some thing to see at the end of the Summer.