Do the animals miss us?

[SpiritoftheFloyd]

I just spotted this post from the BBC, where the Kashmiri goats that live on the Great Orme have started roaming around Llandudno now the town is empty - clearly they don't miss us

bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-521...

On the other hand I'm sure that the very tame ducks and squirrels in my local park are missing the selection of nibbles that people turn up with.

We're plagued here with Herring Gulls, they nest by the hundreds and feast on all our leftovers, but I haven't seen or heard one since Saturday - as pubs closed week last Friday, and majority of shops last Monday - footfall has crashed, so much so that 6 out the 7 local takeaways are closed - I assume this absence of people discarding the remains of their takeaway, or anything they're been eating in the bin, or on pavement, has caused the gulls to go back to sea and go fishing or scavenging along the shoreline.

[SpiritoftheFloyd]

Yes people are in their homes, but almost no traffic, nearly all the shops are closed so almost no one about, and the goats have spotted this as a chance to go foraging in the town

[Calliope153]

They maintain good social distance at the Hedge Restaurant.....

[Sunnie2day in reply to Calliope153]

I've seen several of the videos now. Every time I see the one of the leader stopping in the middle of the street and looking around I can't help 'seeing' David Threlfell's face on the goat, proclaiming 'This is our Llandudno now!'

[SpiritoftheFloyd in reply to Sunnie2day]

I think they secretly always thought that

[hf54]

Hello Floyd – as someone who lives on a Greek island which is actually covered in sheep and goats I can attest to the fact that the animals “like to see the Shepherd“ if not every day and every minute then certainly often. The animals even know the voice of the Shepherd . I don’t know the exact situation of the goat mentioned on BBC but it would certainly tie in with what I’ve seen in the last 27 years or so

[SpiritoftheFloyd in reply to hf54]

Hi hf54

Lucky you, I wish I was on a Greek island, which one are you on?

[gladliz]

Old school friend of mine lives near Milan, been in lockdown for ages but ok. She posted a video of deserted Milan centre which showed a flock of very disgruntled looking pigeons in one of the squares. So they will have to starve for a bit and I wonder if that will reduce the number of young they produce?

[SpiritoftheFloyd in reply to gladliz]

I'me sure the number of young will decrease, I imagine all animals respond like that when food is in short supply, or drought conditions are prevalent.

[Sunnie2day]

OH! I haven't seen (heard and had to 'clean up after', grrr!) in days. I don't like the vicious little blighters so at first I thought it was great. Then I started wondering where they've got to.

Forehead smack time - of course they're not around, no savoury tidbits falling (or being dropped, another grr!) and no toddlers in prams or leading strings to rob of their treat.

Honestly feeling a bit thick here now. Thank-you for the tip-off.

[SpiritoftheFloyd in reply to Sunnie2day]

Day 4 now- and still no sight or sound of a gull. all the other birds are around, even a few pigeons , though they're starting to decrease as they scavenge up after us too, so they may start to struggle a bit, particularity the urban ones - they may have to relocate to the countryside

[Sunnie2day in reply to SpiritoftheFloyd]

We live in a small glens town, our garden is so well supplied for natural food we have the ultimate birders dream world - name the bird and we've got it living in the enormous cherry laurel, myrtle, and rowans framing our back garden. We also have hedgehogs who use the hedgehog highways leading to two different neighbouring gardens - when we moved in both neighbours saw our cat carrier arriving and were SO pleased to hear the cat is an indoor-only feline.

But those wretched gulls seem to have outed what slobs we must be here in our little town by the way they've decamped.