wildlife in the garden

Last year, I planted 20 crown of asparagus in my new raised bed, thinking of the delights to come. They duly sprouted and one morning I woke early to see a vixen scraping them all up - not a single one survived! Cheek!

I have tawny owls in the wood behind my house. It's lovely to lie reading in bed, listening to them calling to each other.

It is definitely venomous, but still illegal to kill it. She has 4 dogs and will be fearing for them. It would be better if it just went away - there's a big Main Roads Dept depot at the end of both our gardens - with a bit of luck it will vanish off into there....

Hope she identifies it first because if it's not venomous, why kill it? I know Australia has more than its fair share venomous species.

Last week I was picking some silverbeet for dinner - and a one metre long black snake wiggled towards me with his fangs showing. I was petrified, but a friend was with me and she simply eased it away by putting the rake in front of it, so that it could only move back the way it came. I breathed again when it went under the fence - then I had to tell next doors that it was there in her garden. She had seen it in her garden before, she said. Knowing her, she'll kill it, though we are not allowed.

Well, I'll not be telling!

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Message deleted by Gransnet.

We have a large number of birds in spite of all the cats in the area. We also have a family of hedgehogs living at the top of the garden and they often snuffle along the patio when we are sat out in the evening. Two dry stone walls each house a family of shrews that can be seen stealing peas from the tortoise dish. Under the tortoise house and at several other places in the garden there are groups of slow worms which often show themselves. All very stimulating for the youngsters.

Once, a couple of years ago, I saw what I thought was a brown paper bag that had blown up into a tree across the stream. But when I got the binoculars out, I was surprised to see a tawny owl facing me, in broad daylight. I often hear owls at night, not to mention the raucous din made by foxes.

Just checked in The Birds of the Western Palearctic (because your comment was news to me, Annobel)and apparently magpies do go further north than the Firth of Tay, right up to the southern part of Caithness, but there is a gap around the Fife and Angus areas. How odd! There's also a gap in the Scottish Borders. Very roughly speaking, it looks as if they prefer low lying land.

We're a bit further south than the Firth of Tay, Annobel, plus the west is warmer than the east of Scotland anyway. We also have crows and jays (which eat all our apples off a very old, fallen down tree that still produces wee apples full of worms — jay food) but I've only ever seen a jackdaw in our garden once. However, in the next village they are very common.

For all their noise and predatory behaviour, magpies are beautiful birds. I think of Gerald Durrell's pair in My Family and Other Animals whenever I see them.

Oh, I forgot, we have dunnocks and hedge sparrows too.

We live on the edge of countryside and have, at various times, dozens of magpies, wood pigeons, collared doves, blue tits, great tits, coal tits, long-tailed tits, nuthatches, robins, bullfinches, chaffinches, goldfinches, blackbirds, jays, and the odd fox or two. I think we also have badgers although I've never seen them. On Christmas day last year we had 7 male and 6 female pheasants (we had an awful lot of snow). We can hear owls at night but have never seen them and we see the odd bat or two. We have way too many squirrels unfortunately.

I feed the birds all year round and it costs a small fortune but it's worth it to see them bring their babies in.

We have loads of cats going through the garden (very quickly) (I have one cat) but the feeders are placed high up on poles and under trees so that the birds always have an escape route if necessary. However, the last couple of days two collared doves have been taken by, I think, either a kestrel or sparrowhawk but certainly not by cats.

When we moved here last year we also inherited a pond with, at the last count, at least 16 fish of various hues.

Your magpies are quite far north, Baggy, aren't they? I don't think they've crossed the Firth of Tay yet, though I know you're in the west. There's a nest just beyond the end of my garden. The parents took over an abandoned crows' nest and built a dome over the top of it. I can watch proceedings from my bed, early in the morning, in the month before the leaves obscure everything. I seem to have a lot of the corvines: crows, jackdaws and jays are noisy as well. And the grey squirrels join in the cacophony, scolding the birds and each other.

I have just discovered what is nibbling the leaves of my fuschias!!! Its a group (? collective noun for caterpillars?) of caterpillars. After much research I discovered that they are Elephant Hawk Moth Caterpillars!!! At the moment we have 4 (probably more hiding)and they are about 7-8cms long, dark brown with horizonal banding and a long trunk like snout. I would love them to survive the winter and hatch out next spring. I have read conflicting ideas regarding putting them in a box with soil etc, but I am not convinced, would it be best to leave them alone and let them find their own winter residence. My grandchildren would love to see the complete circle of life , Help or information please gransnetters

We have a brood of young magpies. Boy! Are they noisy!

Like it, joan.

Slept in my own bed last night after all. The bees settle down at night and I hoovered up all the dead ones on the floor!

Me.
I mean, I'm sometimes the wild life in the garden, 'cos that's where I go to cool off when I'm in a temper. Well, it's a better option than getting done for gbh.

The bees aren't really scary. They're a bit lost, poor things, having swarmed into our chimney ten days ago. Since then they don't seem to have been foraging much, just milling about. Just went up to my bedroom and there are 22 dead ones on the floor and a lot of busy buzzing from the fireplace. They're getting in under the skirting board. We'll have to fill that gap in when they settle down or leave. They'd be scary if we uncovered the fireplace, I guess, because there are thousands of them!!!! Hoping they'll re-swarm and move away rather than die there.

Those bees sound really scary Baggy.

I've just realised how careful you have to be with chemicals. Had an ant invasion just inside and outside the kitchen door. Sprayed them with Raid and just noticed my little robin (my) had flown down and was about to eat the dead ones! They have got young ones out there at the moment so that could have been nasty.

Saw my first ever fritillary butterfly today in the garden. It seems most likely to have been a Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary (Boloria selene) but I didn't get a close enough look to be sure.

Last year I had a first too: a Small Copper (Lycaena phlaeas).

Meanwhile the bees in my bedroom chimney have taken over. Something fell in the chimney last night (old soot??) and today the bees have found a way into the bedroom. I've opened the window and shut the door. May have to sleep in a different room tonight.

We have a good variety of garden birds, squirrels and a hedgehog who has lived in our compost bin for a couple of years. We see him (or her) almost every night and keep hoping to see some little hoglets.

Yes GillieB my husband says the very same, I will just have to speak nicely to the Sparrowhawk!!

gma - I wish I knew how to get rid of the wretched pigeons, but nothing seems to work and my husband says (and, of course, he is right) that as long as I feed the birds I have to accept that I will get pigeons.

Living in London with tiny garden we don't get many birds. Usually seagulls,(not far from the Thames) pigeons and we do have a robin. On my walks in Battersea Park along the river I regularly see a cormorant.