A friend used to keep his large 7-1/4" g. loco in a wooden shed, with an old blanket over it, and a low-wattage electric lamp in the firebox (steel boiler). Very cosy for one field-mouse, who made a little nest for himself on the footplate!

Haha. No pythons here. My mate up the road has them in his shed roof though. They feed on his chickens.  I have a four-foot-long monitor lizard strolls past occasionally. But these guys are regular visitors. Sadly no pea hens amongst them so they never fan their tails out on full display. Still pretty cool to watch as they cruise past, pecking at the garden beds for delicious bugs or whatever it is peacocks eat. They were originally residents of the landscaped tropical gardens of the nearby old sugar mill, which is now long gone but the gardens' residents live on and stroll the encroaching suburbia.

Don't ask me about the sideways pic. This site has a mind of its own. Perhaps a passing mod can remedy, please?

Edited By Hopper on 08/08/2022 14:33:43

All in my Back Yard…

Who would need model engineering to fill their lives when you have such a beautiful creature to be friends with – WOW indeed!

What a remarkable situation to be in on a daily basis. I like to think that i have never been envious of anyone or anything but have to say that could well change my outlook Joseph – you are indeed a very fortunate guy.

Nearest thing I have is the Rottweiler 'Rocky' next door who puts his head over the fence on a daily basis for a Bonio – Big dog but soft as a brush

Best – Tug

Hope this works! He's beautiful and worth a bit of trouble.

Edited By Anthony Kendall on 09/08/2022 09:29:19

We have in our front garden a hedgehog house that I knocked up because I found a visiting hedgehog late one evening. Put out a wildlife camera trained on the house and placed hedgehog food and water every night, we have not one but four hedgehogs visiting for food and yes all four were there together at one time so definitely four, we also get a visit from a fox at about three in the morning and the hedgehogs are not fazed by the fox as they are rubbing shoulders eating from the same food bowl, also get visiting cats but they seem suitably unimpressed with hedgehog food so they don’t partake. One of the hogs, a small one probably female has taken to sleeping in the house during the day, so hopefully she will use it to hibernate in. Quite a few years ago our vets asked us to release an injured but convalescing hedgehog in our garden, I built her a house and in the run up to winter supplied plenty of food and hay for her house, she hibernated and the following year presented five baby hoglets, so hopefully a repeat with our current visitor. Have a number of infra red monochrome videos of our visitors but still working out how to transfer so that I could post them on the website, probably have to resort to getting my grandson involved, as usual the younger generation are way ahead of me with technology. We need to give our wildlife as much help as we can in these challenging times, if anybody wants to encourage hedgehogs then please use commercially available foods, they are a balanced formula and feeding the wrong foods can easily damage hedgehog health if they don’t get the right vitamins, never give them milk because I understand that hedgehogs are lactose intolerant and can suffer greatly if fed milk. Hedgehog foods are easily available from garden centres and Amazon. Dave W

That is beautiful Peter!

Then you have the not so welcome ones. This one was very expensive

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Graham, I sympathise, I keep Koi Carp and used to have problems with Herons, we live on the edges of a marsh, my Koi have grown somewhat since those days being mostly between 3 and 4 foot, bit too much of a mouthful for a Heron but they can still injure the fish by stabbing with their beaks. I found the best way of deterring Herons and Seagulls from raiding ponds when the fish were small was an electric fence stretched around the periphery of the pond, there are proprietary items sold specifically for that purpose, The raiders soon learn that the wire they try to step over gives them a nasty sting, after a few weeks they all learn and you can actually switch off the current and it still acts as a deterrent, I have seen seagulls land walk up to the edge of the pond and then back away from the wire and the current isn’t running but they have learnt that they could get stung. Dave W

Two of our four cats are hunters and prone to bringing mice in thro the cat flap in our lounge door, surprising how fast you can elevate yourself from an armchair when you see a mouse dangling from a cats mouth, the objective is to get to the cat before he lets the mouse go and you can relieve him of it, and if live let it go again somewhere in the garden, if dead make sure it goes in the dustbin. Came into the lounge the other evening to find three cats lined up along the front of the sideboard, all peering intently under the sideboard, instantly I knew that one had brought in a mouse and let it go, there I was full length on the floor reaching under to catch the mouse, success caught him and released him in the garden to fight another day. Dave W

We have one old (11yrs) female cat who is a prolific hunter. Our younger male does not hunt at all. The female will catch squirrels, rabbits (all sizes) and every version/size of mouse/vole/bird (including pigeons) whatever. The rabbits are caught at least 100 metres (but more like 150-200) from the house and are dragged through a wire mesh fence, 80 yards up a steep garden and if not eaten on the patio are somehow dragged through the cat flap into the garage. In some cases they are dead before coming through the cat flap, in others very much alive. If the kitchen door is open she will bring dead ones in and eat on the bathroom floor. If still alive she will release in the hall and then case around the house after it. The weird thing is she eats the head complete with skull, but occasionally leaves one ear, then she will dig into the body cavity for the heart and liver. To look at her you would think butter would not melt in her mouth. When she has dragged a rabbit home she is absolutely worn out.

Colin