Wildlife Advice

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

Ratatouille sounds nicer... 

[BigSkyBrad]

@Man On The Clapham Omnibus  Wallabies are pretty hardy – we’ve got wild (introduced) wallabies in New Zealand too, which is a similar climate to the UK. There’s a huge pine forest out the back of the town where I grew up (incidently it’s the largest man-made exotic forest in the southern hemisphere). There’s a huge grass airstrip in the middle of it for fire-fighting planes, and the wallabies come out onto it at dusk for a nibble. When my brother was much younger, he and his mates used to go wallaby-wrangling for light relief. They had a 4x4 pickup, and they’d split one off from the mob at speed, and one of the guys would leap off the 4x4 on the move and grab it by the tail. The winner of the evening was the guy who held onto a wallaby the longest while it was leaping about trying to get away! Probably not so PC nowadays.

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

BigSkyBrad, wallabies run free in Whipsnade Zoo here in UK. It's in the south, admittedly, but it gets pretty cold there too. There are small feral colonies of them (and ring-necked parakeets in west London incidentally) in southern England and the Midlands. They are very adaptable. 

I considered emigration as a lad and NZ always appealed to me more than Australia because of the more temperate climate. Three million people (as it was then) on islands roughly the size of the British Isles where we harboured 57,000,000 at the time seemed idyllic. I never did though. My Old Flame now resident in Tasmania (for more than 45 years) tells me that the climate there is similar to GB and that is the size of the island of Ireland and has only half a million! Why am I here you might ask?

Now my son is living in Sydney with his Australian wife I'm going to have to get used to temperatures ten or more degrees above my preferred maximum when I visit, but I don't have to live and work in it. 

[dombanks]

Get yourself down to that gearbox place... They will sell you a type 9 that will help. Just ask for the "auto" version tho ....

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

My current wildlife problem hinges around this fella

Who is stealing my fish...

 

[Captain Colonial]

More wires needs methinks...and electrified too.

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

Lower wires and more of them certainly - and a 12 bore! 

[geoffd]

His cousins visit our pond, but we have put a net across it.  Eventually they work out that they can't get our fish for their breakfast.  We chase them away as soon as we see them, in the hope that they learn not to visit.

Geoff

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

The wires across the top worked all winter but as soon as the water level dropped in summer, the bird was able to duck beneath them. The plan now is to lower them to just above 'high-water' in the hope that when the level falls it will still prevent ducking under. Meanwhile, a net is in place.

The fish have disappeared under the centre island and the lily pads and will not emerge for more than a week. Whomsoever thinks that goldfish have bad memories haven't seen mine!