Anyway – yesterday started when we opened our door at 7:15am to see the young stag who has been visiting us with his mother since he was a fawn standing in the drive not five meters from us. He was off sharpish and I don’t think we will be seeing much more of him as he has been supplanted by a new young one, and will soon be up on the hills getting ready to collect himself a harem. To continue the deer theme – we went on for our walk and heard a stag roaring up on Beinn Donich for the first time this year. Then Mum and this year’s fawn were on the lawn all afternoon – I think they more or less live in the wild part of our ‘garden’ down near the river.

We have a new heron on the pond – I think it is a youngish one because it is significantly smaller than the one we used to see and is also very skittish.

Then to complete the wildlife theme, Schrodi had no less than three rodents during the night – one dead short tailed vole, one dead field mouse, and an unidentified one (as R puts it “a wee brown thing”) which was released unharmed. Apparently cats on average only bring 50% of the things they kill into the house – so if that is true he had six during one night.

The heron is catching so many of the poor frogs that today for the first time I tried shoeing him off – just to give them a chance of enjoying their conubials in peace for a while. But to no avail; three times I chased him, and each time he was back within half an hour. The ducks are also spending nearly all their time on the pond at the moment – they are very sweet the way they sleep on the water with their heads tucked under their wings.

Then this evening there was one mature red deer hind and a yearling – presumably her offspring from last year grazing on the back lawn. Hopefully they will keep clear of the daffodils which are now coming into full bloom. As soon as R saw them he ran to get the anti-tick liquid for the cats – it is about that time of year again.

The picture is a bit of a cheat as I didn’t manage to get a photo of the heron today. As you can probably tell from the lush vegetation, that one was taken in the correct location, but in June last year.

Our pair of badgers visits every night. We have at least two martens visiting by day and night – a large (male?) who we briefly saw on Sat afternoon, and a much smaller one (either a female or a yearling) who we watched on the bird table for about twenty minutes yesterday evening. Pine Martens like sunflower seeds it turns out (actually I suspect that at a pinch, pine martens like nearly everything) and yesterday it must have eaten about half a pound of them.

We are also seeing a lot of roe deer with their young – and as for the bird and squirrel population – we are in the middle of a baby boom. Yesterday we had no less than six baby squirrels chasing each other up and down the ‘squirrel proof’ pole and (with incredible acrobatics) managing to eat from the fat balls which are in a wire cage for the tits. We have clouds of siskins and greenfinches which never came for peanuts but which are here in great numbers now we have started on sunflower seeds. Also the baby blue and great tits are just getting to the stage of feeding themselves, but will still do the whole ‘fluff out the wings and open the beak’ in a hopeful fashion every time they see their parents.

The other camera is an Acorn wildlife one – not wireless, so the idea is you put it somewhere and then it motion detects and either takes stills or videos of anything that trips it. I’ve put this down by the river on the route I think the deer take – so I need to go and get the SD card out of it to see if I have ‘caught’ anything.

During the cold spell we haven’t been seeing any of the nocturnal visitors we had this time last year. But over the last couple of days as the snow has melted and things have warmed up, all of a sudden the wildlife has come back with a vengeance. Last night we had both pine martens and badgers (the badgers multiple times during the night), and during the day today we had squirrels and three very frisky roe deer chasing each other around the garden.

R thinks that the difference from last year is that then we had virtually no seriously cold weather – so presumably the animals felt more inclined to be up and about. Also I suspect the badgers are now so well fed that if it is a bit parky out they are not bothered coming out of their warm sett to get nuts.

We also had three sheep today which may be the same ‘Lochgoilhead Three’ from last year who escaped from the farm, invaded our garden and stayed with us off and on for several weeks. I like them but I am not sure the cats are that fond. The picture is of one of the sheep right outside our kitchen window.

I am also pleased to report that our squirrels are back this week. It had been a while since we saw them, with I think the reason being that they were getting plenty of nuts elsewhere (down near the river I found loads of empty hazelnut shells which had obviously been nibbled on), but now that winter is here they obviously need a bit of a top up.

Honestly couldn’t recommend the experience more highly – for someone who loves animals like me, the chance to get up close and personal with them was absolutely unforgettable. We fed polar bears, tigers and red pandas (they were very active – including the two super-cute kittens). Also I saw Pallas cats for the first time – I’ve never seen such a furry animal in my life. If you like animals and don’t mind getting a bit dirty (shovelling poo, being slavered on by camels etc) then I can guarantee you will enjoy yourself. The weather was pretty shocking – but nothing I wasn’t expecting from Scotland in November. So many thanks to V for the present!

And then when I got back, R had done his usual and bought me some great presents. I got a badger necklace, a Lannister crest mug, a Lord of Light cultist bracelet, and some electronic tags to attach to the things I lose most often. The idea is that you can then locate them using your phone – although the main problem there is that my phone is the thing I lose most often.

Also Tora and Schrodi got me a really good card which is the image for this post. The picture is of Tora in the greenhouse earlier this year – I entitled it “The Gardener”.

I’ve voted for him and hope everyone who reads this will go to https://www.voteforbob.co.uk/ and cast their vote so that the score will be at over 100000 before he goes to Westminster with the petition on 15th October.

Unfortunately pine martens and badgers don’t have email and can’t vote – but I am sure if they did they would be all for it….

Just went for a walk then and while we were away, the season has shifted from late summer to autumn. The leaves are seriously coming off the trees now, and sad to say it is raining hard – I hope this is not set in until next April now!

Down at the beach there were a whole load of jellyfish washed up on the shore. I’ve never seen these before so maybe they are an autumnal thing – it is hard to believe that is us coming up to a year here in Argyll.