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Other Animals

(Click on Deer & Birds to view these galleries)

Other animals really mean the wild animals and birds that we observe around us over the course of a year. All animals displayed on the web site have been seen, however there are animals that we know exist around us (road kill - within a few hundred metres) but we haven't physically observed them. These include: badgers, hedgehogs, etc. The deer are the only animals that we have physically taken photographs of. We have seen them on a number of occasions. The photographs (using a telescopic lens) were taken of them grazing near the lake in early June 2005. It seems to be a very small herd of three deer.

Deer Fox Stoat Mink

My mother and I have both seen a fox. My mother saw it near the dustbins early one morning (April 2004). I saw it running across the fields near the lake (Summer 2005). Imelda saw the stoat with a small mammal in its mouth, near the cottage, during a Summer afternoon, in 1998, however it's not been seen since. I saw the mink on top of the dustbin around 4.00 am, Spring 2003. A week later, around half-a-dozen lambs were killed by a mink on a nearby farm. Strangely we see the hares every March (mad March hares). They pass the front of the cottage to go to an adjoining field - probably to mate. We usually see them every other day during this month and then only occasionally during the rest of the year.

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Hare House Mouse Shrew Field Mouse

House Mice, Field Mice and shrews we see on a regular basis due to Jessie (cat). She is an excellent mouser and during the Spring and Summer months we might find a kill a day - sometimes more. We have only seen two dead rats (result of Jessie). One was extremely large and I was surprised as I had read that the cats leave the large rats alone. We found the Natterer's Bat on the ground one morning (Summer 2004). I wasn't sure whether it was the work of Jessie, or old age, as we had observed the bat flying around since 1998. It must have been the only one as we haven't seen another since.

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Brown Rat Natterer's Bat Common Frog Newt Birds

The lake and numerous ditches around the farm mean that there is never a shortage of frogs (except in the front garden and vegetable plot where we need them most - slugs and snails). We have seen two newts (both in 2005) and kept one for two weeks in an aquarium, but it was too much hassle finding it slugs, worms, etc., so we released it. My brother and his wife (Colin & Chris) are amateur ornithologists and noted down all the birds they have seen on their visits.