We Had A Visitor

[Purdy Bear]

Between her and the fox, I'm sure the mouse population is being kept down.  Kate did come last night but only wanted a back of the head shot on camera.  She does like her privacy like any royal moggy.

[maddercow]

Really good pics, she is a beauty.

Lots of mice about at the moment, she'll be busy.

Jo

[hollycat]

Are you sure she wasn't fishing 


I love these pics. I have got to get one of those cameras

[Purdy Bear]

Duchess Kate was back yesterday.  She went mousing around the pond:




Mischa mouse who took a dog biscuit left for the fox, which was a good inch square:




Kate doing a photo bomb.  Who could resist that little face:

[hollycat]

Just read it. 

Thanks

[Purdy Bear]

I think it does.  If you scroll down to the review  I give the contents of the package you get, mine is on there with some example pictures. 

[hollycat]

Thank you Purdy Bear. I have had a look at the link. Not a bad price. Got me thinking now 

Didn't it come with a strap so you can attach to a tree/post?

[Purdy Bear]

The first camera was an Acorn, but that went up the spout after a year.  Here's the details of the new current game camera, I think the night time results are a lot better:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/VWTECH-Infrared-Trigger-Digital-Hunting/dp/B00O9THPTC/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1436013948&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=vwtech+720p+8amp+hunting+game+camera

It's pretty easy to set up, you do need a computer to set the date time etc.,  and a SD card, once you've got that your ready to go.  It's easy to set up, you just flick a switch at the bottom and set to pictures or video etc and your ready to go.  Unlike the Acorn where you had to programme the thing like a laptop.   

I don't know about attaching it to anything because I just place it on the ground.

[hollycat]

Nice pics Purdy Bear 

Can you tell me what sort of camera it is, how much it cost and where you got it from please ?

[Purdy Bear]

As we had a bad thunderstorm last night I was surprised this morning to find that Duchess Kate had paid a visit again last night.  At first she had a look around, then posed for press photos and then off again for more mousing:







PS  Would you say her ears been tipped (TNR)  ?

[Purdy Bear]

The last camera kicked the bucket, so I had to wait for the new one to come before getting some more pictures.  I've been doing so for about a month and guess who turned up last night.  I guess Kate had been to the Tennis and was calling in on the way through:

It looks like she's lost the collar, and gained the earring:



When I see her in the local field she hasn't got a collar on.

Ps Ignore the time stamp, it doesn't reset automatically so I've got to cable connect to reset after every download, grrrrrrr!

PPS  Does it look like she's had her ear tipped,  if so, it's something I wont have to worry about.

[hollycat]

You can tell fox poo by the smell it is very strong.  Its nice to have foxes around, I get one now and again but not seen it for a while. I hear them screaming in the mating season, very eerie

[maddercow]

Is nice to have foxes visit and they keep the rats away. We have two regular beauties in the field opposite. I still lob a few raw chicken wings over for them a couple of times a week.

Weird about the poo on the tree, fox poo does tend to be dark but depends what they have been eating, I saw purple fox poo once, full of plum stones!

X

[Purdy Bear]

I haven't had the camera out the back garden lately as I ran out of batteries, but I know we have a regular fox visiting.  Today I was doing some gardening and found some cat sized poo half way up my willow tree - it is at a slant so didn't fall off.  I presume that is a moggy and not the fox doing it as it was black but a brown colour.   

Said Duchess has been following us on walks,  she wont come close and likes to walk about 100 meters away but she's there all the same.  I've now started to put food and water out every night but I have seen the fox take some of that one on rainy nights.

[Purdy Bear]

I saw a certain black cat on our walk today.  She decided it was best to keep her distance as she went mousing in the local fields.  My dog just stared at her and didn't even lung when she rain off.

[Purdy Bear]

I didn't want to spend a lot of our cat cave, so I got a hooded cat litter tray instead.  It's on a chair in the lean-too which is rainproof and sheltered already.  Inside I just put a few small blankets with a quilted table mat on top, as my pets seem to like those.

http://www.zooplus.co.uk/feedback/shop/cats/cat_litter_litter_boxes/hooded_litter_box/litter_boxes_filter/279574

We don't get bats round here as far as I know, nor hedgehogs as we don't have grass and very high fences.  We just get birds, mice, foxes and the occasional moggy due to the high dog ownership round here. 

I

[maddercow]

Pretty cat!

Which cat cave did you put out? I am thinking of getting one of those Mr Snugs cat shelters for our semi feral Svruffycat. He must go somewhere when it rains but I would like to know for sure that he has somewhere dry and safe. They are not cheap but have good reviews.

We have been having great fun with a couple of mice running along the perspex porch roof into the garage, has been driving Iz and Cash mad! There are several in the garage and some nesting out near the hedgehog houses. Love having mpusies around, they are so pretty.

The hogs are all busy stuffing their faces too, one of the youngsters has doubled in weight and is easily big enough to hibernate already bless him.

So much going on out there..do you get bats?

X

[Dawn F]

such good photos!

[Purdy Bear]

I've just checked our wildlife camera and found more photos of Duchess Kate of Camrbidge, she came from the top of the garden, so maybe using the cat cave I put out for her.  This cat doesn't have the collar like the other one.








Miska mouse and baby have not been seen, but that may be due to a lot of activity next door, plus all the berries are now available for them to eat.

[maddercow]

We had a cat who used to come on our walks too!

Is so hard tl tell if a cat is a stray or not. Scruffycat is still around and looking a hundred times fitter after a few months on chicken wings & raw beef....unsurprisingly! I think he is a stray but he disappears for days and then just turns up outside the back door asking for breakfast.

Is a whole other world out there, we don't know the half of it!

X

[Purdy Bear]

The dog and I went for a walk and guess what we spotted a certain young black cat jumping over a fence near the stables.  This cat had no collar on.  It would explain it all, as there are a lot of feral cats up there.   It will be interesting to look at the photos to see if there actually two black cats in the area.  The other thing the cat could have been following us on our walk, our old cat Splodge used to do that all the time.

[Purdy Bear]

My laptop got broken so I am borrowing my brothers, consequently I haven't checked the wildlife camera as much.  I did get some shots with some of Duchess Kate and a lot of Mishka mouse and her baby.







 Now the later ones with some good news:


Notice the collar so Kate has pet parents, so I don't have to worry about her in the winter, unless they are two different pure black cats!  The earlier cat has no collar, so I've put the camera back out to see if I can catch her/them again to see if there are two.




Miska and her baby survived both these visits.      My old cat Splodge would have had those two rodents in the first sitting.   

[maddercow]

Glad mousie is still with us! She is a determined little cat isn't she?

Think I am going to get a night cam, I really would love to know what goes on out there while I am snoring my head off.

I currently have 3 young boy hedgehogs in a run for soft release, I popped out at 3am on their first night & a big hog was trying to get in with them! I would also like to see if rheh are picking up beetles etc, they were all crowded round a slug the other evening but after a few sniffs and prods they left it alone. They trash the pen every night, mucky  little chaps hedgehogs.

Mr rat never came back, can't say I am sorry!

X

[Purdy Bear]

I haven't been doing an overnight study, as I thought I might catch Duchess Kate and Mishka Mouse during the day.  Mishka turned up but the spy cat Kate didn't reveal herself until I resited the camera for a midnight watch:

The arrival


The dainty departure




Duchess Kate was destressed to hear the call for her name sake to have her hair cut.  Duchess Kate the cat totally refuses to have her fur shaved to match.   

[Purdy Bear]

Duchess Kate did another early morning search for the mouse:






All in all she stayed in the garden for an hour, and no she didn't catch Mishka mouse who appeared in a photo at 7am this morning.   

[Purdy Bear]

Duchess Kate  of Cambridge deemed to visit us last night, but got so close to the camera it was hard to tell what bits of her we saw:

The whiskers


The tail


I'm going to have to see where I can place the camera for better night lighting.               

[maddercow]

Pretty little thing, it isn't a cub but looks quite youthful.

Foxes can be little hooligans, they chuck all the hog food dishes around and dig up my catnip plants! We have two who visit regularly, I give them raw chicken & scraps every now & then, they are lovely.

We had a young male badger coming into the back garden, was amazing seeing him close up but he started destroying the plants & made a latrine in the border so we stopped the gate up & he can only get in the front now, just as well as they can hurt hedgehogs.

Big ginger cat has gone home, managed to read the phone number on his tag, he had been missing from down the road for a few days, they had only had him for a month & he got lost on his first outing! He has to be kept in for a while now poor chap.

Is amazing what passes through your garden.
X

[Purdy Bear]

I love all the visiting wildlife and hearing about your hedgehogs, foxes, toads, and kitties.  We had a new visitor last night, it could be Flinty Fox but the body size on the picture looks a little smaller.  The metal flower trough was also pulled down the garden (NB to self to get the mounting hooks to put it back on the new fence):



This morning my dog chased something I didn't see out of the kitchen so I suspect Kate was around. 

[maddercow]

Part of me wants a camera in my garden so I can see what goes on, we have loads of frogs and hogs & foxes it would be great to know what they get up to. But on the other hand it can be a bit brutal out there!

I may train one on my hog feeding station though.

We have 4 cat visitors at moment, Ivy the naughty tortie who has a tendancy to camp out in our garden all Summer while the kids are around all day at her house. Badcat, the black one who used to terrorise my two through the window. Big ginger, a new visitor, not sure where from and Scruffycat. He is my favourite, he is a long haired black & white & I think he is a stray. He won't let me too near him but is not above waiting at the back door for a raw chicken wing, he has a lovely face.

X

[Purdy Bear]

The cat decided to stay in the garden for two hours last night from 2am to 4am.  My neighbour has a boy cat called Stephen, but I have yet to find out what colour fur it has - a new arrival I think..   Kate is probably not that cat as she's been coming round for a month now and looks very slight to be a male.

[Purdy Bear]

I've not been able to capture Kate lately, but I think we may have seen the little furbee last night:

[maddercow]

Lovely pics, mousie is very cute!

There is lots of stuff we can do for our hoggies if we are lucky enough to have them visiting. You probably know all this but for anybody who doesn't......

A shallow dish of water and some cat food every night in a covered feeding station (I use a large rooftile on bricks, very fancy) is welcome.

Also, monitor them, it is really fascinating, I pop a wee splodge of different colour nail varnish on the spines so I can tell them apart and every now and then weigh them and check them for tick and fleas or any other problems.  Do wear gardening gloves 'cos a) is good practice b) their prickles hurt and c) it is possible to catch ringworm from them!

Major flea infestations can be treated with Johnsons small aninmal/bird powder, dusted away from the head.

Ticks can be removed carefully with a tick lasso, I use tweezers now but you have to be careful not to leave the headparts in so if in doubt leave the odd tick as they will drop off anyway.

Have little holes in your fences between gardens as hogs need to travel a fair bit to get enough food in a night.

Any poorly hogs such as those out in the day (unless they are big fat mummy hogs looking for nesting material) any heavily infested with ticks or coughing or underweight should be taken to a carer. British Hedgehog preservation Society www.britishhedgehogs.org.uk or
Epping Forest Hedgehog website www.hedgehoghelp.co.uk are very useful. One of my regulars is with a carer now being treated for lungworm, I hadn't seen her for a few nights & finally found her coughing and poorly in next doors greenhouse. Hopefully she will pull through ok.

You can tell if a hog is underweight by looking at it curled up, if its bum end is rounded it is a good weight, if it tapers then it is underweight and needs help.

Such lovely appealing little creatures in dire need of our help. Lots of information on tinternet as well 

Jo X

[Purdy Bear]

Young Mistress Kate, decided to leave me a bit of her black fur in the food bowl, so I guess she is definately going into the other garden to find it.  Does it sound like she could be a stroppy madam!  She left poo and that wasn't good enough for me so she put some black hair right in the food bowl which is white, the water bowl is black.  She's one smart kitty.   

[maryas]

It's not nice seeing them squashed on the road, I've seen a few recently when driving on country roads.

I had a mouse in my kitchen the other night, so cute, just sat there and I didn't attempt to catch it cos I knew it would be too fast for me. I opened the back door and assume it's gone as I've not heard or seen it since.

Mary

[alisonandarchie]

Very cute

Stuart, heartbreaking

I went to a talk by Hugh Warwick on Saturday who gave quite a bleak picture of the future of  hedgehogs. He is working with house builders and fence makers to find ways of making new builds hedgie friendly.


I saw my hedgie two nights ago but some of the ones from prev yrs have either dissapeared or passed away

[Purdy Bear]

Great heggie footage.   Here's our afternoon visitor, and it also comes at night as well as the army of slugs last night:

[Stuart]

Yeah, I have already picked a squished hedgie off the road several days ago, probably one that was
coming round to my garden for food 

but I think there are still more than one coming round as sometimes the bowl is half full in the morning
top up the bowl, then next morning it is empty 

[maryas]

Now then Stuart, which one came back? 

Very funny.

Did you see Spring watch the other night talking about hedgehogs becoming less and less - they've asked people to take part in a survey:
http://www.ptes.org/?page=515

Mary

[Stuart]

yeah, I like the Hedgies 

[alisonandarchie]

  They are so funny, like mini bulldozers