WILD ? .."I was LIVID" !..(Wildlife Corner)

[Wendyf]

Newly fledged swallows everywhere. I opened the door to let the dog out yesterday morning and one must have flown straight in to the house, knocking itself out against a window. It died as I was carrying it outside, poor mite.

[Tizer]

Someone on the local bird forum reported the other day that he'd seen about 800 swifts flying over Steart Point which is on the Severn Estuary near Bridgwater. He reckoned that judging from the direction of the flock they were heading for Portland Bill which they use as the last port of call before leaving the UK for Africa. It looks like they are cutting their losses and heading back to the hot country!

EDIT: I heard a noise after posting that paragraph, looked out of the window and it's tippling down...stair rods of rain falling absolutely vertically and very heavy. Can't blame the swifts if they cut short their stay.

[Stanley]

Have you noticed the new measurement? 'Holds ten Olympic swimming pools' and 'three times as big as Wales' has been joined by 'a month's worth of rain'.

[Whyperion]

London Pigeons seem to come in Darker colours than their provincial comrades. Sorry about the low resolution of the picture. But he did seem to look as if a clean and wash were needed from all the traffic grime.

[Stanley]

Lots of birds, mostly Jackdaws and crows, feeding at low level on the green yesterday to avoid the wind.

[Wendyf]

Oh dear, it's been a disturbing day...don't read on if you have a delicate nature!
I set out this morning to clean out the hen house and discovered an infestation of red mites. They were all over the perches, in every crack in the woodwork...yuck, it was horrendously horrible. Poor hens, no wonder some of them have been looking a bit ragged for the last few days, they have been having their blood sucked out during the night!
These things have a life cycle of 7 days!!
They are very common in the poultry keeping world but we have never had a problem before and it's easy, in retrospect, to work out why we have them this year. Our hens are living in a lovely new house, but unlike our previous hen houses, it hasn't been treated with creosote.
I have cleaned, sprayed, and blow torched all I can, but the little mites keep crawling out of cracks in the woodwork......aaagh! Nightmares tonight I think, and a trip to the WCF centre in Skipton tomorrow to stock up on more sprays and powders. Bring back creosote...

[Stanley]

Now that's a real Blast From The Past Wendy! Red mite are nasty little buggers and I remember them well. Have they banned creosote now? We used to have some perch paint that fumigated the hens during the night, that's probably illegal as well! The gas works used to be the source for creosote and I used to mix old sump oil with it, wonderful stuff for wooden huts and fence post bottoms. Nearest thing to it if it's still available is Stockholm Tar. Only other way I can think to get the benefit is to build your own hut out of very old railway sleepers or telegraph poles sawn into boards, they were pressure creosoted. After years of painting, old hen huts looked as though they were covered with black alligator skin because we mixed gas tar with the creosote. See Wilfred Spencer's story, 'The Decline of the Hen Pen'. We used to really worry when we found them in the outside lavatory as well! See this LINK for Wilfred's story.

[Wendyf]

You can still get creosote for "professional use", though it is an offence for the general householder to buy or use it. If I had a smallholding number I could use it legally, but I gave that up years ago as I have no livestock and the paperwork was a pain. What amazed me was the speed at which the infestation happened! The perches were red with them....
I wouldn't have fancied going to your outside loo on a dark night!

[Marilyn]

I haven't heard of Creosote being banned here...mind you, I haven't heard of anyone using it for ages either. It used to be all the rage for retaining walls etc.

Have you tried the vacuum cleaner, Wendy? I did once when I had bees coming into my kitchen down the range hood over the hot plates. Stood there picking them off with my nozzle, until the pest people arrived. Hate bees...hate wasps more.

[Wendyf]

I did think of using a vacuum, but I would have needed a very long lead and they really need to be killed as they can lie dormant for three years. The thought of them lurking in the vacuum was a bit off putting. I quite enjoyed frying them with the blow torch, but got scared when the cobwebs hanging from the roof flared up!

[Big Kev]

The HSE banned the use of creosote, by the general public, in 2003.

[Stanley]

One thing that occurred to me Wendy was the smoke bombs you can get for fumigating greenhouses.

[Wendyf]

Yes, you can buy them specifically for fumigating hen houses. I might try one of those if my current plans don't work. Vinegar kills them apparently, and plain old detergent. Anything that destroys their waxy outer coating. The numbers are falling....

[Gloria]

We had a small hedgehog doing a runner across our arena yesterday, we presume it had got flooded out of it's home. We bobbed it through the fence out of the way of the dogs and went to get it some dog food, when we went back it had gone.

[Tizer]

The dogfood or the hedgehog? (Sorry, once an editor always an editor.)

[Stanley]

I always marvel at the way small animals and birds can withstand being soaking wet for days. Mind you, being flooded out of your nest is different.

[Gloria]

Hedgehog Tizer.
I am amazed at midges, it was sheeting stair rods the other day and there were loads of midges about, how do they survive bombs of water coming down so hard??

[Whyperion]

Small animals fur and feathers designed for run off if active, midges fly between the gaps as the raindrops fall.

[Stanley]

Gloria, there was quite a lot of work done on bees flying in rain and while they don't like it they are better at coping then we think. The thing about constant wetness is the heat loss and you have to wonder why they don't get hypothermia.

[Whyperion]

layers
Feathers and fur are layered , trapping a bit of air , which can warm up and then act as insulator.

[Stanley]

I keep forgetting to comment on the wild meadow plots in the upper part of the park. They have been a success, a glorious profusion of wild flowers all summer and they are still in bloom now.
The council spent money clearing out most of the watercress bed in the mill race but have left enough for it to regenerate. I would have left it alone but am thankful for small mercies.

[Tizer]

This year our spiders are the biggest we've ever seen here, both the orb spiders and the house spiders. The orb spiders are fat beasties this year and are present in large numbers, so many that you can hardly walk through the garden without bringing one back with you on your clothing. The house spiders have relatively small bodies but very long legs so it's their overall diameter that gets your attention - long gone are the days when you could put a jam jar over one and not trap its legs under the lip. I'm not scared of spiders but these chappies make me jump if I suddenly find one near my face. I can't fathom how they get in the house - we've blocked all the holes but they seem to materialise spontaneously! I'm not totally against spiders being in the house but we have a burglar alarm and as you probably know, spiders and burglar alarms don't go together well!

[Moh]

I hate spiders, we have not had any in the bedroom since we put conkers on the window sill last year.

[Stanley]

Moh, you've just reminded me that Betty will be nagging for her annual fix of conkers for spider prevention. Will have to go up to Letcliffe!

[EileenDavid]

I have never heard of that. Plenty of conkers over here will have to find some. We also get cob nuts, sweet chestnuts and walnuts. Eileen