Sep 25th, 2015

Author: donich_admin

Pleasant evening with added Fox

We had some new friends from the village here for dinner the other night. They are interested in the local wildlife as well, and I had warned our creatures to be on their best behaviour and turn up on time.

True to form, at 6:15 there were five squirrels chasing around the feeder, and by arrival time at 6:30, there were only two. I’ll have to let them off though as they did the full acrobatic bit in honour of our guests – I noticed for the first time that when the feeder pole is very wet they have a bit of difficulty getting up it.

Anyway – we then had a nice (I hope) dinner. Garlic mushrooms, peppers stuffed with a quinoa, lentil and pine nut mixture, and a pie made from the brambles I picked the previous day, and apples from our tree.

While the boys were having a post meal whisky, a badger trundled in to view and I thought that the wildlife had done us proud for the day. However, just as the guests were leaving, one of them spotted a tail by the badgers’ nuts on the ground. For a moment I thought it was a pine marten, but then we realized it was an immature fox. We only saw it for a second, but caught quite a good shot on the web cam. It’s clear from the pictures that it is eating the nuts – I had always thought that foxes were pure carnivores but obviously not.

Anyway, add that to the hawk that we saw on the fence that morning and it counts as a good wildlife day. Plus the food and company were excellent.