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Jul 2022
9:44pm, 15 Jul 2022
91,128 posts
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Hanneke
Still noisy here, but the magpies and squirrels dominate...
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Jul 2022
10:14pm, 15 Jul 2022
14,386 posts
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HowFar?
This evening, on my cycle, I disturbed a pine marten and then, a few miles later, a young badger - both made a sharp exit into the roadside hedgerow.
The hares in the front field at home remained quite nonchalant and barely stopped eating when I went past them.
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Jul 2022
1:57am, 16 Jul 2022
20,659 posts
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flanker
Still a fair bit of birdsong here, and going along Haweswater at sunrise on Saturday there was an amazing cacophony of birdsong.
Today's highlights limited to the now-resident canal tufty and a chunky, short-tailed, dark shrew (I'm assuming) on the road verge.
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Jul 2022
9:11am, 16 Jul 2022
6,269 posts
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um
A few days GSW free on our return from holidays last Friday. But then a youngster started coming again - and then again again. Spent most of it's time alternating between fat balls, peanuts & the bath. I started to wonder it was more than one. No sign of the parents.
Then yesterday - a definite different youngster. Shorter/plumper and like to look rather than feed. I called Off Roader to confirm the different id, as another one flew up and chased it away. So definitely 2, I'm still wondering if there's really 3-5 in total and they come at different times?
In other news we saw a large rat again last week, and today two smaller rats running around. Although they're quite cute (as far as rats go), I don't really want them getting into the shed or garage or conservatory, so may have to invest in some traps. Reviews seem to be either 5* and 'great' or 1* and 'crap' for the same traps. (as in catch the rat then take it for a drive and release it miles away, not the poison ones).
Does anyone have any experience of good or bad traps? Or taking rats for a drive?
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Jul 2022
2:52pm, 16 Jul 2022
20,661 posts
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flanker
Not rats, but mice. When we had a house full we found the tip traps (they tip the trap over a balance point and a 'door' falls down to keep them in the bait end) worked well, but only when baited with peanut butter. I had many a midnight drive with a mouse on the passenger seat 
We've also had a rat in the house. We had to revert to poison for that as nothing else seemed to work and it was eating everything. The problem then though was it went and died somewhere in the foundations, flies came and laid eggs in its rotting corpse, and we had a couple of weeks where there were literally hundreds of big blue bottles coming up into the house. Not pleasant.
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Jul 2022
3:12pm, 16 Jul 2022
4,298 posts
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J2R
flanker, have you thought of pitching this to Netflix as an outline for a horror series?
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Jul 2022
3:58pm, 16 Jul 2022
20,663 posts
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flanker
I think James Herbert beat me to it.
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Jul 2022
4:46pm, 16 Jul 2022
6,273 posts
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um
Found the shed (old wendy house) ankle deep in rat droppings this afternoon (maybe a slight exaggeration) when we went to get deck chairs out. So instead of a pleasant doze in the garden under the sun shade, I rebuilt the bottom of said shed. 2 x planks (gravel boards) for the holes in the base and 3 x new side panels/ tongue and groove boards later, hopefully it's now rat proof.
The good news? At it's start in life (>25 years ago) we carpeted it with 2 off cuts from the house carpets. So I could just roll up the carpet, stuff it in 2 bags and all the rat poo and whatever else cleared in a minute of two.
Now to peruse those GSW photos and see if I can determine how many are turning up.
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Jul 2022
10:45pm, 16 Jul 2022
1,432 posts
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paulcook
In terms of bird chatter I’ve tried to listen out the last couple of days. Mainly just swifts and wood pigeons tonight. Noticed some chiffchaffs as well. But otherwise mainly just alarm calls.
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Jul 2022
10:50pm, 16 Jul 2022
56,187 posts
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Derby Tup
What sounded like a young tawny practicing ‘singing’ just across the road when I let the dog out just now 🦉
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