Visitors to the bird feeder

 Checked the camera trap to see if any birds have been visiting the bird feeder. Camera captured a robin, blue tits and great tits.

Also a fox captured on the far wall during the night

Time to feed the birds

 After a mild Autumn, its finally time to stock up the bird feeders: fat balls, meal worm and the head from one of our sun flowers full of seeds.

Badger visitor

Badger captured on the camera trap in our garden. It managed to find the bird food in a plastic container under the window and broke the lid open. 

Garden trail cam - Badger and Fox

A wet night and I did not expect to see much on the trail cam in my garden as inclement weather tends to wet or steam the lens. The images are screen grabs from video clips.

So I was really pleased and surprised to capture this badger on the garden path. The rain probably brought some nice tasty worms to the surface. 

Not the first time I have seen badger in our garden, but its a rare visitor

Fox are regular visitors, this looks like one of this years juveniles.

Old Brickfield Bug Hunt

Not my garden this time, but still urban, a small field near Seaford. This is the Old Brickfield Great to be back at the Friends of Old Brickfield annual event as Steve the bug man near Seaford.

I'm in the white and green tent.

I brought my usual set up of a laptop and microscope cam to display the live bugs collected by the children on a TV screen.

The children were given pots and nets to collect an invertebrate to bring back to the microscope.

Many fascinating invertebrates collected and displayed and added to the annual list.

My personal favourites include burnet moth caterpillar,

cinnabar moth caterpillar,

candy-stripe spider,

ground beetle larva

and dock bug.

Fascinating wildlife and many questions from children and adults.

Garden herring gull rescue

It was just getting dark and there was a commotion outside in the garden. The herring gull family on the house roof behind us found their way into our garden. We think it was because the larger chick had just fledged and the other chicks tried to follow, but unable to actually fly - but having the benefit of height, the gulls managed to make it to our garden. One, that could fly was on our neighbours roof the two smaller ones on the ground peeping and adults nearby agitated.

We knew we could not leave them because foxes visit our garden each night and they would easily take the chicks. Sharon and I both have experience in handling birds, so we decided to catch them (we did contact the local gull and bird rescue but no one was available until the following morning). Luckily the gulls had moved into the passageway down the side of our bungalow and so with one of us each end and Sharon was able to catch them using a towel to wrap their wings close to their body, one at a time. We managed to get them into a cardboard box and the cat carrier. 

At that moment the adults took flight calling and dived bombed a fox heading towards our garden and successfully chased it away. Interestingly, at no time did the gulls try to attack us. We do put out a big bowl of water on our garden wall during hot sunny weather so the adults have got used to us being close.

We then transferred them into a larger box and put them in the green house over night.

Following morning we decided that as the parents were still around we would try putting them up onto our roof through the skylight. 

Once on the roof they were joined by their older sibling.

That was Thursday 20th

The Chicks are now on our flat roof and being visited and fed by the adults. We have put a container of water on the roof which they are using. 

Hedgehog on camera trap

Always pleased to catch a hedgehog on camera trap in our garden. Sometimes catch a glimpse as one moves through the grass. This one just came strolling down our front path.