All Creatures Great And Small

[LadyCG]

My husband has found five frogs in our garden this morning. Lovely little creatures.

I wouldn't mind seeing a hedgehog - although we did have one under our table one night in Turkey.

What critters frequent your garden?

[douglas9401]

Cats mostly, and magpies although the latter have recently been discouraged by a neighbour re-installing the bird of prey shaped scarer in his back garden.

No screeching shitehawks either.

[Hazlinny]

Squirrels, pigeons, magpies, next door's puppy and, sometimes, a deer struts along the path over the fence.
Wish a hedgehog would come to stay in the garden "dump".

[LadyCG]

I'd love to live somewhere where I could have deer visit. My grandparents had a lovely cottage when I was growing up next to a field full of cows and they'd often stick their heads over the fence for a nose...

I'm definitely going to get a hedgehog station and a load of nesting boxes when the garden is done. He took up the lawn yesterday ready for the new one we're going to lay probably next month when it's cooler.

[Hazlinny]

Lawn/ Will that be artificial grass?

When I lived on a farm, cows did the same and the children next door used to feed them on digestive biscuits!

[LadyCG]

No, it'll be real turf. Hence we really need the weather to cool down as we don't want the new lawn to be scorched.

[LadyCG]

Looks a right mess out there at the moment:

https://ibb.co/M1mbHNn

[Hazlinny]

Am sure it will be nice when finished - like the mix of trees over the fence.

[gingejbee]

Umpteen frogs, hedgehogs (two last night, one was huge), tame robin which follows as you are gardening/watering, wrens and red kites which swoop onto the garage roof. Oh, and bats circling at twilight.

[LadyCG]

Oh that's a long garden that stretches across the bottoms of mine and a couple of the neighbours' gardens, belonging to a bungalow around the corner. The old lady is quite green-fingered. The magnolia looks resplendent when it's in bloom but lasted about 3 days last time :-(

We've seen a couple of Dwarf Korean Lilac trees we want to get for the raised beds down the bottom of the garden.

[LadyCG]

That's a lovely mix of critters, gingejbee. I could do without the bats though - they give me the creeps.

I haven't seen my two favourite goldfinches for a couple of weeks.

[fourteen85]

We have hedgehogs every night, we have seen as many as 8 different ones on a night (we feed them)

[LadyCG]

Lovely, fourteen85. I do hope to attract some myself when we're looking more sorted out there.

[DTCwordfan]

Do you have badgers, LadyCG - if so, forget the hedgies - to a Brockers, a hedgie is a mobile Mars Bar.

[LadyCG]

No badgers in the garden but we are right on the edge of miles of greenbelt so there's plenty in the neighbourhood.

There's vast woodland at the top of our road and I love going down there and seeing the squirrels. I did see a fox on the other side of the road the other week running down the neighbours' drive.

[ladybirder]

LCG do leave some gaps at the bottom of your fence if you want hedgehogs, 13cm x 13cm should do it. They can climb but not over a 6' fence.

I got them during lockdown when the roads were quiet but when it was over and the traffic back to normal we saw dead ones squashed in the road. My hedgehog house has been empty ever since:-(

They gave me such pleasure.

[ladybirder]

Watch out for the foxes, they eat hedgehogs.

[LadyCG]

Thank you, LadyB. I'll make sure we do that. They're such lovely creatures.

[JJ109]

Frogs, toads, lizards of many varieties, just the occasional snake, scorpions, squirrels, chipmunks, and so many types of birds mynahs, sunbirds, bulbuls, hoopoes, doves, oriental magpie robins and the list goes on

[LadyCG]

North American chipmunks or Siberian? :-)

[JJ109]

Well it is Thailand - so Asian chipmunks of some sort. We get more than one variety of them, but I have never looked them up to see what they actually are! Quite a number of years ago we also had a three legged mongoose- obviously lost its leg in a trap, but it died after a few months with us!