Author: Adrian Doyle

We are lucky to have swallows and housemartins as regular visitors.  The swallows nest in various sheds and the housemartins on the house under the guttering.  They are not the only birds nesting here, there are nests all over the place.  We have left a lot of areas covered in scrub and brambles and these make excellent nesting areas.  In the last few weeks, we have watched fledgling sparrows and blackbirds hopping around on the grass to the front of the house.

The swallows like to nest in three of our sheds.  In two of them, the roofs are quite low and you could easily reach up and touch the nests.  They seem quite tolerant of us humans.  The nest in the picture on the right is attached to one of the strip lights in the lambing shed.  We think this could be a second brood because, in other nests, the chicks have long since fledged and flown off.

We also have some enterprising wrens.  They have taken to moving into unused swallow nests and making their own version of home improvements.  This means packing in lots of moss and making a small tunnel for an entrance.  The one in the picture to the left is the other side of the beam from the above mentioned swallow nest.

This is not the only swallow nest that has been taken over, there are also wren nests in the other sheds perched on top of old swallow nests.  Well done wrens, very clever indeed.

Last November, I found a tiny hedgehog wandering around the garden.  It was too small (less than 300g) to survive the winter, so we took it in (see hedgehog seeks board and lodging).  With a custom built run, house and a personal heater, Hoggy grew stronger over the winter months.

We released her at the end of March (see Hoggy Released).

We set up a wildlife camera to capture what she did and placed a feeding station near the hedghog house we released her into.  In the first week, only videos involving a mouse, a deer, a cat and a robin were captured.

I looked in the hedgehog house and Hoggy had gone.  It’s what one would expect from a hedgehog, but for some reason the wildlife camera didn’t capture her leaving.  Most annoying.

We kept the feeding station and camera in place.  A few days later, we had our first video of a hedgehog.  It didn’t go into the feeder, but it was a hedgehog in the vicinity nevertheless.  It took a couple of days (or nights) before we finally captured a video of a hedgehog in the feeder eating.

We are pretty sure it’s Hoggy because she ate the dog food and dried calcium worms but left the specialist hedgehog food.  This is what she had done in her winter quarters.

We shall keep replenishing the feeder to ensure she, and any other hedgehogs, have access to a tasty snack if they need it.

In our smallholding here, we have a small loch which attracts ducks, herons and other water birds including geese and even occasionally, a cormorant.  We also have a duck house that we bought years ago.  This year, we got our act together and rooted it out ready to go onto the loch.

We loaded it onto the quadbike and set off.  We had plenty of nylon rope (for securing it).  They can be attached to an anchor, but we don’t have a boat so we couldn’t take it out to the middle of the loch.  Our cunning plan was to tie it to two trees, one on each bank.  I also had to relearn a sheet bend, a knot I had failed to learn as a boy scout, a mistake which nearly cost me my advanced scout badge.  It’s funny what we remember.

Anyway, first things first, we had to get the duck house on the water.  It comes in two pieces, a floating platform and the house itself.  It can be quite tricky to get this level, but we got there.

This plan started well with us securing it to the first tree.  The idea then was to walk around the bank to the opposite shore.  The problem was that there were other trees in the way making this tricky.  Also, the first think to happen was that the duck house got tangle up in some branches.  We couldn’t pull it free without knocking it and thus causing it to tilt.  Nor could we reach it to push it clear.

So, it was boots off and into the water I went.  By judicious prodding with a tree guard, I managed to get it free.  By this time Nicole was half way round the loch and had come up against a rather tricky tree of her own.  This one was in the middle of a marshy area which we couldn’t really walk on.

I nipped back to the house and got a plastic milk carton and some more rope.

Back at the loch, I joined the ropes, attached the milk carton (full of water) and lobbed it over the loch.  This enabled Nicole to fetch it and tie it to a tree on the opposite bank.

The duck house was in place and ready for use.  Now all we have to hope is that the ducks use it.  There are a pair of ducks down there though they are quite nervous so we can’t go and look otherwise we’ll disturb them.

Last November, I found a tiny hedgehog wandering around the garden.  At less than 300g, she would never have survived the winter.  We took her in and she has overwintered in a special box in the pantry with her own personal heaters.

While the nights are still a bit chilly here, I have seen other hedgehogs out and about.  Hoggy has also been very active of late, completely re-arranging her winter quarters every night.  We decided it was time to release Hoggy back into the wild.  The heaters have been off for the last week or so so she should be a little acclimatised to outdoor temperatures.

We had a hedgehog house set up under a bush and we stuffed it full of fresh hay.  We also added some hay from her indoor bed so that she would recognise her smell.  Next to it we placed a cat and dog-proof feeding station that I built years ago so we can continue to provide food.

In the early afternoon we took her out.  Nicole did the honours, carrying her to her new home.  We say “new home”, but there’s every chance Hoggy will leave and not come back.  Like many wild creatures, hedgehogs don’t really have homes like us humans.  That said, there are a couple of hedgehogs that nest under the pallets that support our hay, so maybe round here they like to have a nest.

Nicole introduced Hoggy to the tunnel into the hedgehog house.  Hoggy needed no second invitation and was straight in.  We watched her disappear into the bed area and said our goodbyes.  We will be resisting the temptation to look in as hedgehogs don’t really like to be disturbed when they are sleeping.

We have set up the wildlfe camera to see what she does and will do our best to keep an eye on her, should she decide to stay.