Exciting week

It's been an interesting week.  There has been a lot of fox fighting (over food) this week but I will post the video's on here at the weekend.

My Wood Mice have decided to expand their family.  This week I managed to catch sight of two little babies.  They are tiny.  I managed to get a photo of one of them (below) whilst it was hiding in the corner of my plastic shed that houses my bird food.

To give you an idea of size the plastic box he is next to is a normal sized lunchbox.  Excluding the tail he is just bigger than a 50 pence piece.

The next exciting thing was discovered this morning.  Hoglet has been coming into the garden for food.  Recently he has started to use the other hog house to rest in during the night in between meals.  But during the day he disappears.  Each morning I have checked the hog house to see if there are any signs he's been in there overnight and add some more bedding (hay) is needed.  I always take my camera with me and open the lid very carefully just in case.

This morning I carefully opened the lid and there curled up fast asleep was hoglet.  He didn't even stir.  I took a couple of pictures without using a flash so that it didn't disturbe him.  Fingers crossed he decides to hibernate here.

Bless.

Update

Having been away on holiday I am now catching up with the garden wildlife.  Had a great time staying just outside Rye.  For most people the weather would have been classed as terrible but for us as birdwatchers it was perfect.  Great South Easterly winds and sudden hard rain showers = loads of birds.  We even managed to see a bird that should be in America.  This was a Wilsons Phalarope.  Unfortunately no pictures as 2 minutes after we got to see the bird the heavens opened and we got stuck in a thunderstorm.

The week started well.  I have long distance photo's of Marsh Harriers in flight but no real good close ups.  After 4 years this changed and I got the following picture:

This is a female and she has just killed and is now eating a Coot.  This bird is huge compared to anything you will see in your garden (in Sussex anyway - if your lucky enough to live in Wales or Scotland that may not apply)

The views in the Rye area are amazing.  I am putting together a calendar of Sun rises/Sun sets for next year.  The following may be included:

Sunrise from Pett Level looking towards Dungeness Power Station.

Sunset from the same viewpoint but obviously looking inland (west).

Now back to the garden.  We came back 24 hours early as I was worried about my hedgehogs.  We had no one to fill up the hog food after Friday morning.  Despite the food being over filled I didn't think it would get the hogs through to Monday morning.  So we came home Sunday.  Turns out I was right.  The hog feeding station was a mess.  Food and Poo everywhere.

I'm back to taping events and caught some good footage this week.  I cannot work out if it is Mrs Hog or Hoglet visiting throughout the night.  If it's hoglet then he really has grown since we went away.  If it's Mrs Hog then her damaged leg really has healed.

Last night I caught this on camera (watch carefully as it's quick)

As you can see during the rain a Frog decided to leap across the garden right in front of the camera.

The hogs are also rushing into the hog house for food.  The video below is at normal speed and as you can see they are almost running into the hog house.  More sedate on the way out for a drink.

I have 2 hog houses. The first you can see in the videos which I use as a feeding station.  The second is tucked in the corner by the fence.  I am hoping that this will be used for hibernation.  I have newspaper in there and yesterday I added some clumps of straw.  This morning it looked like a hog had been in there (twig in front of doorway had been moved) so I carefully opened it and this is what I found:

Definately a hog shaped nest.