Trail Camera Footage – Page 2

Earlier this year, in February, I put up a three strand electric fence to try to deter the Coypu coming onto the property and eating all the lotuses on the pond. It worked.

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This year we had a magnificent display of flowers and no Coypu turds. The availability of fresh shoots in the wild has dropped as we come further into winter. They managed to find a way in by the bridge in October. Here are four of the blighters I blocked this off with wire mesh at end of October.

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The family of Coypu coming up from the river…

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So, we have had no Coypu sign until about a week ago. I found some chewed iris shoots. I set up the trail camera and got one returning to the river hesitantly through the electric fence. I did not see it get shocked but I heard the audible click as 0.25 J earthed at kilo Volts through the Coypu. The animal seemed to be coming from another direction. I set up witness sticks on the river bank and by a hole in the fence. The little bugger was coming through the fence. I blocked it last night with one big and one medium sized pine fire logs. He shifted the smaller log last night. I saw some Coypu sign, damaged iris shoots. There are two fairly hefty fire logs there now.

Yesterday evening when checking the fence I came upon an electrocuted toad. For an animal ~50-100g I guess 0.25 J is too much. I am surprised that it was on the move. We have had an inordinately mild time of it. In general, we get up to 60 toads and frogs at any one time in the pond for mating. I wondered if the annual migration is beginning early.

Today I have put a few more posts up near the old ingress route for the Coypu and lifted the bottom wire so that at no point is it less than 6cm from the ground. That should be enough room for the amphibians but not enough for the Coypu…

We shall soon see if the toad migration proper is beginning early.

Another harbinger of anthropogenic planetary warming?

Since Felix the feral tom cat has gotten back from the vets without his bollocks things have started to change in the garden hierarchy. The other night we heard a fight. Felix has taken to sleeping in a different position in the garden. All the animals enter through the big three metre tall hedge.

Yesterday I noticed, just outside my office, a dead rat. It had rigor mortis and was not fully mature. There is a “pissing” tree approximately three metres from my left hand. Gandalf the now neutered feral female has the habit of leaving me vole noses and entrails, on the window sill about a metre from where I sit.

Last night I set up a trail camera on the patio outside my office. At ~3:45 AM a hefty striped cat appeared. It sniffed the tree and started to piss on it. This is something like the eighth cat to visit. It is possible that the tom brought the dead rat.

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Felix who probably got Gandalf up the duff before they were operated on has started rubbing himself against our legs. The vet suspects that he might have feline AIDS. Before he would not let me get within a couple of metres. Gandalf has been angling to get in the house. She is becoming a trip hazard. They have started sitting on the back door mat. Waiting impatiently to be fed. This behaviour was hers and has been copied by Felix.

I am starting them on a course of aromatherapy. I have applied some malt vinegar to the mat. It keeps Gandalf at bay but Felix seem more immune to the smell. He even sniffed some blue roll soaked in ammonia. He is often snivelling and has a near perpetual cold. I know by experiment that neither cat likes the smell of petrol

If I can break Gandalf’s habit Felix will follow suit.

Is the new cat a regular visitor? Will it attempt to acquire more territory like Israel in the Golan Heights and West Bank?

We shall see…

Category: Trail Camera Footage

Preparing for the Annual Toad Migration

A Dead Rat, No Nads and a New Tom