Posts Tagged ‘Wildlife’

Homemade Bird Food and Feeders

Saturday, January 9th, 2010

One of the great things about living at Waterloo Farm is the variety of wildlife we get in the garden, and especially at this time of year, the birds. We always try our best to put food out for them, ensuring there’s something for everyone – peanuts and seeds in feeders for the little birds, apples and suitable leftovers for the bigger ones and food on the floor for those that don’t hover so well like our resident pheasant Fezziwig! As you can imagine we were getting through quite a lot of shop-bought fat balls to keep up with them all, so I decided to have a go at making my own, and I’m pleased to say my experiments have been a total success :)

(more…)

Pet Pheasant ‘Fezziwig’ (Phasianus colchicus)

Sunday, September 20th, 2009
'Pet' Pheasant (Phasianus colchicus)

'Pet' Pheasant (Phasianus colchicus)

Sometime ago we named a male pheasant who appeared to be very friendly ‘Fezziwig’ (The name of Dicken’s Scrooge first boss). Fezziwig has now shown a remarkable behaviour, whenever we sit down for dinner (tea) he appears on the patio looking for food!

Now you might think that is not that clever as we must surely sit down at the same time every night. But that is not true. We can be later or early by an hour and he still appears. We have drawn the following conclusions why:

(more…)

Roe Deer – our very own Bambi!

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009
Roe Deer Fawn/Kid

Roe Deer Fawn/Kid

Well continuing the wildlife at The Farm theme, I thought you might like to see a poor quality picture of our very own Bambi!

However I think strictly speaking a baby Roe Deer is actually a ‘Kid’. Oh no…does that mean we now have four kids LOL :)

(more…)

Great Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos major)

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

Great Spotted Woodpecker - Dendrocopos major

Great Spotted Woodpecker - Dendrocopos major

Well it has been a while, and lots has changed since my last post, but I could not pick-up the blogging baton again in earnest without mentioning another visitor to The Farm, a Great Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos major).

The photograph is not great I am afraid, but I think you get the idea! It makes a right din when it arrives, and it was the yakking sound that alerted me to the visit first.

(more…)

Foxy Loxy in the Garden

Monday, June 1st, 2009

A first for The Farm today was spotting a fox sussing out the land. Looks kinda cute at the moment, but I know I won’t be so impressed when we have chickens!

My neighbour’s chicken run is like a Chicken Fort Knox, with a high and low electric fence running all the way round it. He lost some chickens due to foxes, and now he has a shoot-on-sight policy. (The foxes, not the chickens!!)

I did spot another fox recently in the neighbouring field carrying a dead rabbit off, so if we could just train them to eat rabbits (wild ones!) we would be laughing.

In my dreams maybe…