Non Native species

Be on the lookout for these Invasive species

 

Over wintering

He’s just a youngster born too late in the year to survive hibernation over winter.
The Sunderland rescue centre has scores of young hedgehogs in this predicament.
Two solutions:
1) Just let nature take its course and allow them to starve and die
2) Take them into shelter, fatten them up on cat food and provide a cosy nest box. Come the spring, release them into the wild.

It’s your choice

Hedgehogs in the summer

Hedgehogs have come out of hibernation. Look after them in times of drought. Consider building a “smoot-hole” in walls and fences to allow them to wander between gardens.

Word of the week from writer Robert Macfarlane  is “smoot-hole”, the small gap at the bottom of dry-stone walls to allow hares and hedgehogs to roam from field to field but not sheep. 

The Times, Friday 3 May 2019

 

 

Hedgehog houses have been placed on the common and disguised as leaf piles!
Can you spot the hedgehog house?

Swans on the ponds at Ravensworth
Raptor with a rat in its talons flying along Slip Inn Bank
Pheasants everywhere

Moles adding soil to their hills (but no sight of the actual moles)
Owls (tawny) hunting cries at dawn and dusk

Great Crested Newts

These are the animals that are notorious for halting construction work and delaying canal restoration projects. Here they are in Gayles.

Cuckoo

A cuckoo has been heard in Plantation woods above Gayles Hall. No sightings as yet

You wait for ages for one woodpecker to appear. Then …