Encounters With Animals...

We're having a bit of trouble with fledging birds...having the doors and windows open is an invitation for any little bird learning to fly to get itself trapped indoors...banging frantically against the windows knocking stuff flying and crapping everywhere...sorry...bad word...pooing everywhere.

I woke up this morning to two Swallows zooming round the sitting-room ceiling while Himself was engrossed in his lap-top and hadn't even noticed them...

A couple of Autumns ago a tiny bat flew into the bedroom...he landed on a torah I had hanging over the door so we left him there thinking he'd find his own way out eventually. He didn't though. He climbed onto the side against the doorframe and hung on for the entire winter...didn't seem to worry him, us having the lights on or the noise of the vacuum cleaner. One late spring evening I watched him peep over the top of the torah and then he flew straight out of the bedroom window.

We had a Fox as well...he wasn't tame but he wasn't alarmed either when I went to feed the cats. He'd sit at the end of the poly-tunnel and watch while I put their food out...if he was really hungry he'd go straight to the nearest dish and start eating...the cats didn't seem to mind him...the bigger brother would swipe him sometimes with his paw but the Fox didn't care, he'd flinch a bit and then carry on eating.

Don't know what happened to him.

Hector...my old cat who died a few years ago... once caught a young Mink...I could hear the most appalling squealing noise coming from the garden and went to investigate...there was poor Hector sitting bolt upright with an expression of pure horror on his face and a small and exceedingly angry young Mink on its back in front of him...waving it's legs in the air and baring its teeth and all the while emitting a dreadful ear-splitting screech.

I clapped my hands and shouted...it turned itself the right way up and bolted for the river while I swear Hector heaved a huge sigh of relief...he washed his paws carefully and stalked off into the flowers...

We've never had Badgers coming to the garden...though we do know a woman who has a family of Badgers come right up to her back door to eat the food she's left out for her cats...

They are living around here because the dogs like to roll in their poo when they go for walks and you can see their footprints in the muddy boreens...Himself used to see a big Boar Badger when he took the dogs out late at night...blundering along the laneway...the only time I've ever seen baby Badgers was the same evening the Billy goat leapt on the bonnet of Petra's car and gave us both hysterics...it was the middle of the night and he simply appeared from nowhere...landed with a terrific thump on the bonnet...leapt off and disappeared...

Petra had been driving slowly because the baby Badgers were pottering along on the side of the road...they vanished when she stopped with a screech of brakes and slid ungracefully into the nearest hedge...I learnt several German swear words that night.

Another Billy goat once trapped us in our car...we'd gone to visit some friends one day and pulled up outside their house only to see a really large stinky Billy goat making a beeline for our car...huge horns he had and he was filthy...his beard all matted with pee...I opened the passenger door and he was there in a flash...head down, with a look of evil intent in his eyes, he head-butted the door...so I closed it quickly...every time either of us opened the door there'd he be...our friends stood on their garden path laughing fit to bust...

Eventually...and it was a good half an hour...a chap came along driving one of those big 4x4's...when he'd stopped laughing at our predicament, he drove very slowly towards the goat and sort of pushed him along until he was a hundred yards or so away...we bolted for our friends front door and we never saw the goat again...

[piggi]

Oh ha ha ha!! I LOVE these stories. I live in a town (unfortunately) and never even seen a badger. Saw an otter last year swimming down our local river - people were amazed - the banks were lined with people watching it and ooing and ahhing - like it was royalty. And I saw a hare up on the moors large as life licking his paws, very curious when I stopped the car to look at him/her. Lolloping along slowly to see if I was following. Absolutely enchanting. I feed our birds. I've got a blackbird nest in the hedge in my yard. If I'm sitting out the parents land on the gate with a grub in their mouth - look at me askance and then fly all round the houses so I won't know where they're going! I think they were a bit late off the mark with their nesting and the babies haven't come out yet.

[Hidden in reply to piggi]

I think hare are stunning...the Irish Hare is bigger than the English...lol...there are so many folk tales about them...it is said they can shape-shift...

The birds were late this year...the cold wet spring didn't help!

[Azure_Sky]

Our boy (he's 37) works as a commercial claims handler.

He told us about a case where a woman saw a small deer by the road. The woman thought it was unconscious and put it on the back seat of her car.

Then, as she was driving along, the deer woke up and was frantic. It wrecked the interior of the car. Her claim was accepted.

My mother told me she saw a group of hares, sitting in a circle in the moonlight. In the centre was a large hare sitting up and waving it's paws, as if it was giving a speech. She also told me about a work colleague, who was riding along on his moped, when a deer came out of the woods and jumped right over him.

[Hidden in reply to Azure_Sky]

I always thought it was an urban legend about the apparently comatose Deer wrecking the car...heard that so many times...lol

[Azure_Sky in reply to Hidden]

I asked James about the story and told him he was a little monkey (6ft 4in) He said he couldn't remember telling us, but yes it is an urban legend.

I asked if he had any true ones. He said the latest one was when a bee crawled up a man's shorts and stung him on his bits, he ran into the car in front!

Another true one was when a cow jumped over a hedge, damaged the bonnet of the car! I didn't know cows could jump!

[emmo]

I begin to think these are all 'fishing' stories - the ones that got away. Incredible.

[Azure_Sky in reply to emmo]

The hares in a circle thing happens, more than one person I know has seen it. Deer jumping over people on mopeds and bicycles is quite common.

[Hidden in reply to emmo]

You wouldn't have doubted the horrible Billy goat that landed on Petra's car bonnet...Petra doesn't smoke but she asked me for a rollie to calm her nerves!

[knitter]

I like the goat stories especially, for some reason a goat found its way into our garage and I got a few head butts before the owner arrived. Another time it was a stray sheep in the garden...and we don't live in the country but on the edge of a small town.

We've had ducks and chickens too and a hedgehog in the dining room.....I think animals must know a soft touch lives here.

[Hidden in reply to knitter]

I think I might have snaffled the ducks and chickens...think of fresh eggs lol

Best not to enquire too deeply about hedgehogs in the dining room...☺◙

[piggi]

Actually, now you say about hedgehogs .... you remind me about my friend who lives very decidedly in the middle of town and he had a scratching at his kitchen door one night. When he opened it a hedgehog scuttled inside. He was so surprised but he put down some scraps and a box for it to climb into and after a bit he left it. Next morning it wasn't in the kitchen and after an extensive search of his house he found it asleep ... in his bathroom bin! I find it so impossibly funny that this very short legged creature huffed and puffed its way UP the STAIRS!!! When it woke up it hopped down again, asked to go out and he never saw it again! Hilarious.