I saw a thing in the garden (1 Viewer)

Was delighted to see what appeared to be an otter in the Liffey just beside Ha'Penny Bridge the week before last. It may have been an enormous rat either but whatever the lad was he was pegging it upriver at a fine pace.
 
ever heard a snipe winnowing? sounds like a 1970s sci fi sound effect.


Huh. Nope.

I live facing onto a forest which backs onto a river which goes right out into the sticks. I'm almost in the sticks myself strangely enough. But there's lots of noises in this forest and there's things passing through and hanging around near the river.

So I'm sitting on the balcony, and it's night time, I'm presumably boozing or something, and I hear kids shouting and laughing out in the forest. It's black dark, it's about 9-10 pm, and I'm thinking huh. Kids. Running around the forest at night. OK. Huh.

And then a couple of days later I hear the kids again, and I'm sort of thinking, they sound very young. I'm getting a bit Fox News and I'm thinking who's just leaving their kids run around a forest all night? There were a few of them too. I'm trying not to be an old cunt, but it does seem slightly odd. Plus they can move at a fair rate. I'd hear them over there, then all the way over there.

This goes on, night after night for about a week.... before I realised it was a pack of coyotes.

Trumpistan is largely speaking an authoritarian fascist shithole, but it does have class animals.
 
Has anyone ever heard a corncrake anywhere, ever?

My old man used to tell of being tormented by them squawking all night. I've never heard one.

I looked out the window of my apartment at the trees the other day, and staring calmly back was a raccoon. Thing is I'm on the 4th floor. The raccoon was strolling about more than 15 meters up, balancing on branches and stuff. Decent enough.
I remember watching a cat playing with a preying mantis outside your place when I stayed with you (years ago!)
 
not an animal, but a couple of years ago we had a minor scare in the garden, found what looked on first inspection like japanese knotweed, but it turns out is probably deadly nightshade. result.
 
I remember watching a cat playing with a preying mantis outside your place when I stayed with you (years ago!)
That's right.

I loved those preying mantis guys and it broke my heart that the cats would torment them.

I'm not sure if you saw them walking around normally, but they did this weird rocking walk that almost looked like they had Parkinson's.

I should buy a house around here and then your whole tribe can come out and go hunting for local wildlife. My little guy is exceptionally good at finding water snakes. He could be the tour guide.
 
the photo gives a reasonable sense of scale here - my hand was only a few inches behind this lady.
 

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yep; just known as garden spider here, i think.
Right.

sorry about the Latin. There's few enough names I remember now, since it's not my job to write them down, I never see even the ones I learned where I am now.

Apart from the bastard Hedera helix. Egnlish Ivy; the prick is over here too.

Myself and my brother used to feed a cross spider, wasps caught from our fuschia (?) bush in jars. Something dancing ladies? I dunno the English. Jesus. Fuck English though.

Moral of the story, the spider became frighteningly big. We ended up being scared to go down to the end of the garden where she lived.
 
So I had these wrens nesting in my hanging plants in my apartment.

This is the second round I've had this year, there was a load of them in the spring. Well, four.

And then I noticed they flitted about and seemed very interested in this hanging Nepenthes (?) I have. I work a lot, and I leave my apartment open. And wrens are cheeky bastards. So they nested in my cycling gear cupboard. (Hint, I'm not riding much.) Then they found the hanging baskets.

They ended up being pretty cool housemates. My kids would just play their Nintendo Switch or whatever, and the wrens went about their bird business. Their latin name is something or other Trogledythes (???), as in, troglodyte. As in people who live in caves. And my apartment is basically a cave, so it all adds up.

Anyway, today was extra pandamonium, since the babies left the nest. The previous batch nested in the cupboard by the balcony window, they just flew out. These boys nested around the corner. At around 6am the kids alerted me that "there's baby wrens everywhere", and got back to Super Smash Bros.

I herded up the wrens, and showed them where the exit was. One lad just sat on my hand though. The sun was shining, and he'd done his due diligence with a couple of chirps. Then he had a nap.

Then I had a sneezing fit, and he hopped off to the clan.

My kids are claiming I'm a grandfather now.
 
We have 15 of these things in the kitchen alone. Trying to think of way to monetize this
 

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We have 15 of these things in the kitchen alone. Trying to think of way to monetize this

My granddad used to tie them onto a hook, and use them with fly fishing line.

He told me it was a bit of a secret, I'd probably be better off not mentioning it to anybody, and he wasn't sure of the ethics. But that it did work quite well.

(I'll take 15%, and a seat on the Board.)
 
finished the pond today - we have one in the back garden, but the frogs have made it into the front garden so it gave me an excuse to provide them a second home there too. i reckoned that if we'd had a summer like last year's, the ones in the front garden might have found it difficult to get back to the back garden, and last year the back garden pond was chock full of them due to the drought.
 

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