Colour variation grass snake? Yellow collar looks like GS.
Colour variation grass snake? Yellow collar looks like GS.
I wondered about that with the yellow collar, but it seemed very dark (and very small!)Originally Posted by Bartholomew of Basildon
HOGBUBs
On Mark Avery's 'Standing up for Nature' blog I came across this cartoon by Ralph Underhill, reminding people to be mindful of hedgehogs living under a bonfire stack. It brought out the storyteller in me...
Attachment 8568
cartoon by Ralph Underhill
"Bonfire night's a national disgrace!" said Mr Spiny, the Chairhog of HOGBUBs, Hedgehogs Oppose Great Big Unchecked Bonfires, at a meeting to discuss hedgehog safety prior to hibernation.
Mrs Tiggy-Winkle squeaked up "We feel so lucky to find a lovely, dry hibernaculum, tucked away underneath masses of twigs and piles of wood, but just as we nod off for the winter we are awoken by a tremendous heat and many of us are roasted to death before we can escape the burning issue."
"It's just not fair!" exclaimed Mr Pricklepants. "We have to put up with so much human-made anti-hedgehog behaviour. We find ourselves consuming slug pellet-contaminated snails and slugs in gardens that are becoming less hedgehog friendly due to all those awful deckings."
"And it doesn't end there" piped up one of HOGBUB's committee members amongst the array. "If any of us are lucky enough to survive a winter's hibernation without being prodded by a garden fork or dug out by an unsuspecting gardener, we are then at the mercy of those despicable four-wheeled metal machines that squash the guts out of us as we cross the roads on our first food forays of the new season."
Mr Spiny summed up the meeting with a request for all hedgehogs to get the message out to the Humans, "Please carefully re-make your bonfires prior to setting them alight. If you do come across a sleeping hedgehog then checkout the information on this website - http://www.sttiggywinkles.org.uk/top...act-sheet.html . And next spring please don't use poisonous slug pellets, there are effective alternative methods of controlling slugs and snails, you could even leave us to do the control for you! Drive carefully too, we don't wear reflective spines."
The meeting finished with a grand feed of metaldehyde-free barbeskewed slugs, battered shell-free snails, earthworm and insect quiche, and woodmouse stew all swilled down with copious amounts of lovely, clean pond water.
Andy Holden
Last edited by wharfeego; 29-10-2016 at 04:45 PM.
After watching tonight's David Attenborough's Planet Earth 2,I want a pair of Ibex feet. Did you see the way they descended that sheer cliff face?
Reckon Ted Mason could give them a run for their money
Went for a walk up Plover Hill yesterday starting from Foxup. Lovely route and hill - never been up that way before and the steps at the top are great. Said to Sally on the way up "will we see plovers, this being their hill? Just got to the top and there was a flock of about 20 what I think were golden plovers flying around. Lovely. Mind you very little else about apart from some grouse.
Quite possibly were Golden Plovers, there's been a flock of at least 85 a few miles down the valley at Hellifield Flashes.
"very little else about apart from some grouse"; generally not much up there at this time of the year. It is a heavily keepered area (grouse shooting moor) so very little chance of spying a Hen Harrier.
Unless it's full of lead.
A barn owl hunting by day - 2.00pm at Timble Ings near Otley. Really good sighting as it flew from fence post to fence post as we got nearer. Very light coloured in flight and then reddish brown when perched. Looked great against the snow.
Running over Alport in the snow today it was great to see a number of Mountain hares in full winter white pelt, we only got to see them when they broke cover to stop us stepping on them...invisible
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