BS: Varmints

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: keberoxu
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 01:17 PM

could the spiders be Morris dancers?

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: Senoufou
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 02:45 PM

Hahaha keberoxu! Quite probably a side called the Norfolk Clog Dancers!
My much-loved neighbour-across-the-road pointed out to me just this morning some very strange and sinister webs in the two honeysuckle plants that frame our front door. Huge, thick, woolly webs totally unlike those of garden spiders. She reckons the spiders are coming in the house by climbing up the plants and using them to access our open windows.
Wish she hadn't said that - I quickly shut all the windows and the front door (usually left open when we're at home) and I'm now stifling hot but spider-free.

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: keberoxu
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 04:47 PM

In this part of the world,
there are squirrels -- the full-size ones,
not the little chipmunk scamperers --
in two different colors:
the very common grey squirrel,
and
black squirrels.

I have in fact seen black squirrels before,
during an extended stay in
Pennsylvania's Montgomery County,
northwest of Philadelphia.
Now I am in mountain country
near the state line between
New York and Massachusetts,
where I have never stayed before,
and here are the black squirrels again ...

and the other day I spotted, in the grass between trees,
a squirrel of such an unusual coloring
that I suspect
a mating between grey and black,
with a sort of brindle in-between result.

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: Senoufou
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 04:35 PM

Well now it's blooming carpet moths! When we moved into this house ten years ago, all the carpets were a lovely wool-mix and just the colour we liked, and I think when they were laid by the previous owners, they were anti-moth treated. But the treatment has worn away and now we have quite a few holes, and these blasted tiny moths appear on the walls.
I keep spraying the eaten-away holes, but my sister tells me the only solution is to replace all our carpeting with non-wool stuff.
That would be one heck of a kerfuffle, and an enormous expense, so holes it will be.
Maybe the huge spiders could be persuaded to eat up the moths?

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: Jos
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 06:24 AM

I have heard that the National Trust and other keepers of stately homes encourage spiders for just that reason.

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: Senoufou
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 07:12 AM

Gaaaaagh Jos! I reckon I'll be a bit terrified now to go into any of the NT properties in Norfolk!
Our lovely Churchwarden is an elderly single man, and his house has huge cobwebs hanging from all the ceilings. We've been invited a few times round his for a nice cup of tea, but I kept eyeing those webs with trepidation. He laughed and said he liked spiders (!!!) and they kept flies and other pests out. My husband replied that it would keep me (a pest??) out too!

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: leeneia
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 01:34 PM

Senoufou, could those huge wooly webs be where tent caterpillars live? Google it.

About the carpet moths: here in America the bird-seed stores sell traps for the moths which might come with the seed. Perhaps you can find something similar to trap the adult moths as they emerge.

Be sure to distinguish cobwebs from spider webs. Cobwebs form when static electricity causes various kinds of dust to cling together in filaments. They are harmless, although they probably mean that it's time to clean the house.

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: Senoufou
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 01:59 PM

That's most interesting leeneia, but the webs on the honeysuckle are more than likely spider ones. The neighbour very kindly cut back both honeysuckle plants for us last autumn, right back to the wall, and she said several 'enormous black spiders' ran away and under our garage door (gaaaaagh!) She has no fear, and reckons they have now returned and made their nests again. I'm just wondering what species of spiders these are.
As for the Churchwarden, he actually confessed that there are lots and lots of big spiders in his house, and calls them his 'friends'. (gaaaaagh again!)
I'm very ashamed of this phobia, but it's been there since I was a tiny girl, and I can't get the better of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: leeneia
Date: 10 Jun 20 - 12:33 PM

I don't think I believe the story about lots and lots of big spiders in an English house, not unless the house is unusually rickety or infested with other insects which serve as prey. I believe the man was pulling your leg. But check with authoritative sources.

I have sometimes had a spider in the house, but very small. I figure they eat the eggs of houseflies and cockroaches, and so they are welcome little guests. (None of them has ever come near anybody.)

I bet if you researched it, you would find that the big spiders' habitat is thick, leafy vegetation such as the honeysuckle, and they would never be tempted to enter your house.

You don't need to be ashamed of your fear of spiders, but perhaps if you learned more of how they live, you would learn some reassuring facts. I have a terrible fear of heights, myself, but I'm not ashamed of it.
=============
We have a big vine of native honeysuckle, and this summer we have a hummingbird pair feeding from its blossoms. Lovely!

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: Senoufou
Date: 10 Jun 20 - 12:42 PM

Ooooh, hummingbirds would be so much more acceptable! How delightful!

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: keberoxu
Date: 17 Jun 20 - 06:29 PM

A fox! I just saw a fox!

I'm at a residential treatment center in a small town,
and that is where the fox appeared,
nor am I the only one who saw it.
The sun is still out, if low in the sky.
The grass around the greenhouse has been recently mown,
and was cut too low to conceal anything moving in the grass.
The fox paid all of this no mind,
and paced slowly past the greenhouse over the cut grass,
under the trees.

A full-grown sized fox, and none too young;
the fur was quite brown, hardly anything resembling a red color;
muzzle, tail, and what I could see of paws
had nothing resembling black, just more of a neutral pale color.

It was the head and the tail, actually,
that helped me to positively identify
that this is a full-grown fox and nothing else.
I have rarely in my life seen an actual brown fox.

Normally, the foxes I see are near an open road,
if not dead by the side of it,
and they have been so young as to be almost pink-red.

I'm not a wilderness person and I do not venture
where older, browner foxes live, out of sight.
And it is rarer still when
an old brown fox comes out where the grass is mown,
near a parking lot full of parked autos.

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Jun 20 - 06:53 PM

We are overrun by bloody grey squirrels, an extremely unwelcome import from North America, and rabbits, an extremely unwelcome Roman import. I would welcome a plague of foxes, buzzards and domestic cats to control these horrors.

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: Mossback
Date: 17 Jun 20 - 08:27 PM

Steve-

We'd be happy to come & get our squirrels if you'll return the favor & come get your goddamn starlings.

Also, be careful what you wish for - we ALREADY have a monumental plague of domestic and stray - feral[sic] - cats that needs doing away with & soon.

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Jun 20 - 08:43 PM

I understand that certain Canuckistanis object to our beautiful purple loosestrife...

My garden is overrun with American willowherb. Japanese knotweed is a menace in Cornwall. When it comes to starlings (endangered this end) I don't know what you're complaining about. You have far worse bird plagues your end. Then there's that Canadian fleabane. Bastard...

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Jun 20 - 04:45 AM

Speaking of Canada, Canada geese have been called "Britain's most hated bird." I understand that they may be hated even more in some parts of the US. The cygnets are very cute, but I should think that that's as far as it goes.

Subject: RE: BS: Varmits!
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Jun 20 - 09:20 AM

Many US white guys perform a ritual of going into the woods armed to the teeth to kill an animal, not for survival but for sport. If you ask me its not a fair fight, its not like the animal even has a taser. The hunters patiently track an animal after being alerted to its presence at long last. If the animal surprises the hunter and starts to run they may get off a shot or two and may only hit their prey in the back and exclaim "GOT HIM". When the hunters come across the carcass they may give it a kick to be sure it is dead and it is not uncommon to even stand upon their prey. For a white guy who grew up hearing black people are animals and have that notion reinforced by others around him as well as incidents that further dehumanize black people in his eyes, the white guy actually comes to believe black people ARE animals. Is he murderously psychopathic? No, he was culturally trained to kill as in the hunt. You have to be carefully taught. Unlearning is a hard road.

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: keberoxu
Date: 18 Jun 20 - 10:26 PM

You say "cygnets"
and I say "goslings" ...
call the whole thing off?

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: keberoxu
Date: 20 Jun 20 - 04:16 PM

Just in time for people to start getting out more,
the area I am living in currently
is sending out warnings about
hungry bears raiding dumpsters ...

it reminds me of the shark/Jaws movies,
"just when you thought
it was safe to go back in the water ... "

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Jun 20 - 06:11 PM

Yeah, goslings. That'll do me.

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: keberoxu
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 03:21 PM

Today, meeting with one of my caseworkers,
I saw outside the office window
a groundskeeper with a stiff broom,
walking around the windows and walls outside the building,
taking down spiderwebs.

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: keberoxu
Date: 24 Jun 20 - 07:40 PM

Today it was a cottontail rabbit.
Very brave of the rabbit to come out
in the same spot where
the fox was on patrol earlier this week.

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: Senoufou
Date: 25 Jun 20 - 03:55 AM

Last night we had a tawny owl on our bungalow roof hooting away like mad. On and on and on. Must have been feeling horny. Nice at first but it got a bit annoying (very loud!) They do catch mice etc so not a bad thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: Senoufou
Date: 25 Jun 20 - 07:19 AM

Now it's those huge bluebottle flies. In this heat, we have to open the windows, plus the doors of the conservatory and utility room. So the blooming things bash around buzzing loudly trying to get out again.
I haven't the heart to swat them/squash them. They can't help being flies can they? So I gently usher them out with a flapping tea-towel.
I swear it's the same ones that come back in again!
I offered one a bit of ham. It seemed to like it. Daft aren't I?
Our neighbour, a shepherdess, tells me her small flock has 'fly-strike' (maggots in their feet and bottoms).

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: keberoxu
Date: 01 Jul 20 - 09:48 AM

The coronavirus pandemic now has a component in
mink and ferrets.

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: robomatic
Date: 02 Jul 20 - 01:13 AM

Probably due to so many people staying indoors we've had some reports of wildlife on the sidewalks. I live in the suburbs five miles(8 kilometers) from the downtown of the biggest city in Alaska. So a neighbor three blocks away saw a full grown otter running past his cul-de-sac. About two weeks ago I saw a black bear on the sidewalk. And people I don't know got on the neighbor web and reported a brown bear kill within half a mile. And a moose with calf in the local dog park. This is above average and probably covid related. Aviation is far below normal even now, and skies are I think somewhat bluer and certainly way quieter.

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: Charmion
Date: 02 Jul 20 - 04:25 PM

Senoufou, don't you folks over there have window screens yet? They keep out flies, mosquitoes, moths and all manner of critters, including spiders!

When my grandfather moved his family from Montreal to England in 1924, he discovered with disgust that window screens were unknown, although they were standard equipment in Canada. Over 21 years in England, he made a full set of screens for every house the family spent more than a few months in (they moved frequently due to his work).

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: Senoufou
Date: 02 Jul 20 - 04:42 PM

No Charmion, no screens. I've seen them in Africa, and with mosquito nets over the bed, one can be relatively insect-free.
The poor bluebottles whizz outside again if 'encouraged' with my tea towel, but some drop dead on the floor from starvation (which is why I offered a bit of ham!)
My neighbour-across-the-road has had to send for the Rat Man because she's seen one rat in her garden (She's terrified of them) It's said that one is never far from a rat, and I don't myself mind them, but they are dirty creatures and carry Weil's disease.

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: Penny S.
Date: 03 Jul 20 - 05:41 AM

In Aldi or in Lidl, and probably other places, I have been able to buy black mesh with velcro fixings to cover the windows. You can get white mesh too, but I prefer the black as it's barely visible. It does the job of screens.

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: keberoxu
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 08:29 PM

Some big hungry bears are coming down from the mountain and hill forests
to knock over people's dumpsters.
Where I'm staying,
there was just a flurry of excitement with others running about saying,
"Don't go outside! There's a big bear out there!"
and running from window to window in the fading evening light,
trying to see the big old thing.

I just stayed at the computer ...

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: keberoxu
Date: 21 Jul 20 - 06:54 PM

The bear got away from the police.
Don't ask me how, because they treed the bear.
The patrol car pulled in, and out came the policemen
and one of them had some sort of gun (tranquilizer?).
But somehow, the bear got away.

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: keberoxu
Date: 13 Aug 20 - 09:49 PM

Another night, another bear.
Well, it could be the same bear, for all I know.
He's at the dumpster and the trash, of course.
I didn't look out the window but others did
and they say the bear left quite a mess while dumpster diving.

Wonder if somebody will call the cops again...

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: Senoufou
Date: 14 Aug 20 - 04:09 AM

Oh dear, the poor bear - he must be very hungry.
That tame red deer Bambam has been munching on flowers in tubs on people's patios and peering in windows wanting to come in. He's also swimming with all the children down at the river Wensum, and playing with people's dogs, chasing round and round. He turned up at the riding stables one evening and started teasing the horses in their paddock by butting them on their bottoms (he has no horns as he's been neutered) He's an absolute scream, but he can be a danger on the roads.

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Aug 20 - 10:30 AM

Bears can be moved and if it isn't very far away they will return, quicker than you might imagine.

Some foolish people have been feeding nutria (an introduced fur-bearing rodent) in one of the parks upstream from my house. I expect one of these days they'll become part of the excitement in the back yard. It's legal to deal with them as pests, but you can't keep them because they are fur-bearing (and were used for coats at the turn of the last century, hence their introduction).

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: keberoxu
Date: 14 Aug 20 - 12:14 PM

Nutria! Now, there's a varmint for you!

I've never been in areas, I don't believe,
where the nutria were introduced and became pests.
I understand that they reproduce like rabbits!

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Aug 20 - 02:31 PM

I spent more than thirty years turning our half-acre rural-coastal garden from a bleak, open field into wildlife heaven. We get an amazing diversity of spiders, insects, birds, reptiles, amphibians and small mammals and I love that. But this year we've had a swarm of honeybees actually living in our shower room under the shower tray (accessed by a tiny hole in the exterior stonework we hadn't even noticed), a wasps' nest right over our front porch, a plague of grey squirrels (alien), a plague of rabbits (alien), masses of cluster flies all over the garden, pheasants (alien) trashing a section of our lawn and destroying my fuschia hedge, wood pigeons demolishing my broad bean crop, an absolute plague of large white butterfly caterpillars and a horrid resurgence of Dutch Elm Disease which has killed several large trees already and which is threatening lots of others. In chapter two I'll tell you about the nice bits...

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: Senoufou
Date: 14 Aug 20 - 03:32 PM

We had a bumble bee trapped inside our conservatory this morning. I'll swear it was the size of a golf ball! I got a hand towel and gently encased it, then let it go outside. I'm never scared of bees or stingy thing, just spiders.
Steve, your wildlife plot sounds gorgeous. Well done for encouraging all those species. Shame about the 'invaders' though.

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: keberoxu
Date: 16 Aug 20 - 02:06 PM

My first RED squirrel in donkey's years.

I grew up, decades and decades ago,
where there were squirrels
both red and grey.
In time, the grey squirrels, who are much larger,
crowded out the red squirrels in that region;
and most likely there were other contributing factors.
But what I recall is that after a time,
one only saw grey squirrels and no more red squirrels.

Presently I am staying in a different part of the country,
where there are mountains, foothills,
protected forests, acres and acres of green trees,
and
the squirrels come in three colors:

black, grey, and red.

The black squirrels and the grey squirrels are different in color
and alike in every other respect. Same size, proportions.
Occasionally I have spotted a sort of
brindle-furred squirrel of the same size,
which I take to be grey-squirrel-plus-black-squirrel.

The red squirrels, though, the little ones,
are still here; there is room for any and all squirrels here,
and they don't crowd each other out.

So, where did I spot the little red squirrel yesterday?
Why, at the local branch of
MacDonald's fast-food restaurants, of course,
diving into a dustbin by the parking spaces,
looking for something edible.
It was hilarious to watch the little beast going in headfirst
with his furry red plume of a tail sticking out above the dustbin.
It was only in there for a minute or two,
apparently whatever was in the dustbin
wasn't even fit for a red squirrel to eat.
Then,
out again, across the alley, and up the nearest pine tree,
and leaping from pine tree to pine tree
next to the shopping center, wheeeeee!

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Aug 20 - 06:46 PM

So today's good stuff: a comma butterfly, a peacock butterfly, a couple of red admirals, a speckled wood, a common blue, a couple of small tortoisehells (not enough), a European hornet (they're fine!), several species of bumblebees on my Salvia "hotlips", a pair of woodpeckers, a coal tit, loads of blue tits and great tits, a couple of goldfinches, jays, dunnocks, chaffinches, a robin that wouldn't leave me alone in the garden, loads of blackbirds...

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Aug 20 - 07:06 PM

And the weather's been horrible: hardly any sun for days, hot and with high humidity. But I saw all that in my garden today. Then, a few minutes ago, I stepped outside into the dark, hot evening, and the stars gleamed out at long last through the boughs of my pride-and-joy big beech tree. The moths were all about. Beauty and calm enveloped me and I even thought of singing a song (but Mrs Steve was in bed and she might've thought I was doing my Romeo to her Juliet bit...). God sat on a nearby tree stump and asked me why I didn't need him. I told him that the beauty and diversity of all around me were all I needed, magic not required. He slunk off in a huff, and I'll swear he was muttering that I'll never get to heaven. Bugger that, I thought, I'm OK here...

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: Senoufou
Date: 21 Aug 20 - 12:36 PM

Oh how lovely Steve. I think you're living in an earthly paradise similar to our village.
Yesterday evening our whole street was outside because Bambam the tame red deer had wandered up and was happily browsing on everyone's flowers in all the front gardens. He's very big, but completely tame and gentle. We were all worried about passing cars and a possible tragic accident, so I fetched some biscuits and my soft dressing-gown belt. While he munched on a Rich Tea, I gently put the belt round his neck and nose (like a horse's halter) and we all quietly led him back down the road to the Old Rectory.
Trouble is, apparently he was back again very early this morning and has eaten most of my neighbour-across-the-road's begonias, much to her fury! Other neighbour (adjacent to us) said "Oi'd loik him in a noice venison stoo with a foo caaarrots n' taters!"
Regarding moths, aren't there a lot this year? Our house seems to be full of them. I try to liberate them but they get squashed so easily when one tries to catch them.

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: robomatic
Date: 24 Aug 20 - 09:18 AM

My main exercise is walking a dog, not my own, with her keepers, and occasionally hiking with one of them. They live nearby and it turns out there are some nice open spaces in their neighborhood, which is pleasantly upholstered with school grounds melded into some municipal parkland, good continuous concrete sidewalks and curved routings so you never feel confined to a grid. And treed areas in which the wildlife can hide. One of the wildlife is a huge bull moose which has wandered through the suburbs for the last few years. While you never treat a moose as a domestic animal, this one appears to have a personality like Ferdinand, he has enjoyed the lawn sprinklers on some of our hotter days, and apparently lounged within ten feet of a local family barbecue with no one getting excited about his proximity. He would be a prize 'harvest' were he in the wild. And as I mentioned earlier in this pandemic, a black bear has been seen round the corner treading the sidewalk (by me). Nevertheless those same sidewalks are populated by bicyclists and babycarriages (and me). We've had the annual visits from stellar jays, which are plump jaybirds with a crowned black head and upperbody shading into a midnight blue with a bit of a sheen toward the tail. They are talkative birds, the ones that passed through my yard seemed to have a long complex message to pass amongst themselves and to me, but less raucous than our constant companions, the magpies. While I haven't seen beaver in years, my largest tree was heavily eaten into by something that must have been a team of them, within the last couple years. Since the tree is a cottonwood, I'm sure my neighbors were rooting the beavers on.

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: Senoufou
Date: 24 Aug 20 - 03:28 PM

Goodness robomatic! Moose, bear, beaver - what a great selection of animals you have there!
Out tame village deer Bambam has disgraced himself. He turned up one evening recently at the door of the village pub (called The Fox) and they invited him in! He's the size of a horse. He wandered into the main area and suddenly pissed copiously all over the carpet hee hee. There was a large steaming lake of it, followed by a hail of pellets of poo. The landlord was naturally furious and chased Bambam out, while the landlady started the Major Cleanup.
The pub has only just re-opened due to the Virus Lockdown, so this was very ill-timed. I don't think he'll be invited back in there ever again. When we heard about it (we don't go to the pub) we nearly died laughing.

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: keberoxu
Date: 25 Aug 20 - 05:43 PM

I reckon, sadly, that were this animal in the US,
his days would be short indeed;
a tame deer would not get the same treatment here.

And I wonder, not to be pessimistic,
how long the deer can be kept safe.
For that, he is extremely dependent upon humans,
and humans can be, well, careless and cruel amongst other things.

It's a tough world for 'varmints.'

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: Senoufou
Date: 26 Aug 20 - 10:44 AM

You're quite right keberoxu. Many people here are saying the same things. Bambam wanders all over the place and our narrow streets are winding. I so hope that some motorist doesn't run into him. The whole village would mourn his loss, that's for sure.
His 'owner' has made a nice hi-viz jacket for him to wear when he's out and about. I reckon he needs a nappy too, for when he enters the pub!
(nappy = diaper)

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Aug 20 - 04:23 PM

There are no truly native deer in Cornwall, bar roe deer which are only here anyway by dint of human encouragement, but there are plenty of them around and they are a menace. Totally out of balance. Round here, the only good deer is the one in your freezer in steak form.

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: Senoufou
Date: 26 Aug 20 - 04:42 PM

There are large numbers of all types of deer here in Norfolk: roe, muntjac, fallow and red. They carry Lyme's disease in ticks, but Bambam has been de-ticked by his 'owner'. He's been castrated and has a microchip too.
The latest news is that she has offered to compensate any people whose plants/flowers have been eaten by him.
I don't really approve of 'domesticating' or keeping as pets naturally wild creatures, but she raised him from a tiny fawn, abandoned on her land, by bottle-feeding him. I suppose she did the best she could.

The huge flock of blasted crows has now taken to assembling on our bungalow roof and tap-dancing in what sounds like wooden clogs at dawn each morning. Appalling din, but it does make me giggle (husband, not so much!)

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Aug 20 - 06:18 PM

There's also the suspicion that deer are an important vector of bovine TB. And they're a damn sight more mobile than badgers, and they harmoniously mix with cattle in pastures. But badgers are only good for shaving brushes, whereas deer have Bambi, so they'll be fine...

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: Senoufou
Date: 27 Aug 20 - 02:51 AM

Gosh that's interesting Steve. And as you say, since they hobnob with cattle in the fields, they could be transmitting TB to them.
They're causing lots of damage to trees in Norfolk by 'de-barking' young saplings. There have been moves afoot to start culling, since numbers of deer have risen alarmingly over the past few years.

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 27 Aug 20 - 06:37 AM

It’s been a while since I last saw red deer in the field where I am in North Norfolk but if I did, they would probably be (as has been believed to be the case in the past) escapees from the 1000 acre Gunton Park. When I have seen them, I’ve just hoped they stay the far side of the field and away from us and they have obliged.

There were a couple of sightings of roe deer in the field this year and one of them came within 10-15yds of mum when she was having her tea outside when it came along, had a nibble of some tree leaves and possibly a drink before moving on but that’s been our lot.

Subject: RE: BS: Varmints
From: Senoufou
Date: 27 Aug 20 - 06:49 AM

Ah, your mum must have been enchanted Jon! They are pretty creatures, with their delicate legs.
In our last house, in Newton St Faith, we had a huge garden bordering on fields, with only a shallow ditch in between (no fences). All sorts of creatures wandered into the garden, including a lovely pair of fallow deer, a mother and her daughter. They were after the blossom on our ornamental flowering almond tree. They used to stretch their necks up to munch away.
I think you're right about the 'escapees' from posh landed gentry's parks. It seemed to be the fashion to have herds of 'ornamental' deer, and they would obviously get out and about in the area.
I visited one of 'my' prisoners down in Suffolk, and on the drive down, groups of deer would alarmingly emerge from the woods along the way and dart in front of me! Couldn't say which species - I was too busy hitting the brakes!