Garden Visitors

If you have been following my blog for a little while you will know we have a resident tree dwelling fox, you can read more  here and here.

Today we had some new visitors to admire for a little while,  a family of parakeets were in the trees at the end of the garden.   The parakeets have made Surrey their home with colonies of upto 7000 being recorded locally.  There are many theories as to how the parakeets came to reside in this area,  but whatever the theory it is good to see them.    They are very noisy though and squawk when they fly, they sound like a squeaky kiddies toy!   Today there was 7 at the end of the garden,  Mr Fox seemed quite interested in them and at some points they did seem to get very close to him!

The Fox Saga

Do you remember this post?  Cunning Mr Fox.  We have watched the fox over the last few weeks, sometimes it is in the tree and other times it is not.    We know for definite that it has no problem climbing the tree and will happily sit up there all day.  We think it must have found or made a comfy platform as we can watch it stand up, turn around and curl up again.

Mr Fox turning around getting ready to curl up

Sleeping

Today there is a new development:-

Count the foxes!!

TWO foxes in the tree!!  Before you know it there will be a whole family up there!  Just a reminder we live in an urban district and this tree is huge - much taller than our 2 storey semi detached house.  Unbelieveable  don't you think!

The tree at the end of the garden

As much as I dislike foxes having lost my ducks to one of them and the constant threat they pose to my chickens - the new one is really quite a stunning looking creature. 

I wonder how this saga of the foxes will unfold?

Alison  x

Cunning Mr Fox

Fortunately all of my chickens are safe and well.    We have had a visit from a Fox - you are going to have look really hard at this photo to spot the fox.....

 Did you see him???   The tree is very very tall,  much higher than the house and growing behind the garden fence.   Mr Milly spotted the fox yesterday, but I didn't see him - today we saw him again.   Perched right at the very top of the tree sitting watching the chickens and everyone else in and out of our garden and from that vantage point several other gardens too.   I think our dog and the dog next door could both smell him and not see him as they were both very vocal all afternoon.  As the sun started to go down, down went the fox, no doubt to return another day.  Peer closely at the top of the tree and you might see the orange Mr Fox

A couple of better pictures of him - posing for the camera I think.

Can you see him now?



A zoomed in shot of the fox watching me photograph him.

Just goes to show that if you are keeping chickens a fortress to protect them is needed,  6 foot high fences are really no defence when they are able to climb like this.    Another learning for today - Mr Fox can climb very high trees! 

Nasty horrible creatures

Here I am sitting in on the sofa - suddenly a terrible din is coming from the chickens, not normal chicken bok-boking,  a true alarm call......  a fox was standing on top of the ex batts run drooling and staring at them!  How horrible is that!  I ran bearfoot  in my PJs  into the garden to chase it away,  but that really is too close for comfort.    I'm going to check every inch of both of the runs this morning to make sure they are as secure as I can make them.     The chickens seem to be OK,  just a bit quiet at the moment none of the normal morning noises, I expect they will perk up as egg laying time approaches!

Luna and Flora - the ex batts  at home.



Early morning eggs



That's confirmed it - Gillian can't read!