SPIDERS!!!

[lonelymom]

The Squirrels seem to have died of Lead- Poisoning (Administered through the Ear !)

I LIKE squirrels! Not close-up, you understand (that would be too much to expect from me!), but from a distance, like when they run along my garden fence. I had serious words with one of my neighbours a few years ago when he put down poison to kill our squirrels. Luckily, more came, and I love watching them. My husband's auntie hand-feeds the squirrels that come right into her kitchen.

What I want to know is did Tim ever write the article about spiders that started this fascinating thread?

I wondered that!

You haven't lived until you've been close enough to a tiger relaxing on a raised platform after breakfast to be able to actually smell his breath as he trys to catch your sent !

You're making me jealous!

[J.R.]

Slightly off-topic, I know but when I did the photo-shot for 'Cats Magazine' at Woburn, the park and enclosure were closed to the public and I had the whole morning with the senior big-cat keeper.

Driving round in the Land-Rover, there was a shortened double-barrel shot-gun strapped between the front seats.

I jokingly enquired if he'd ever had to actually use it on a Lion orTiger.

"God No !", he exclaimed, "That's to ensure you don't suffer too much pain if one attacks ! The big cats are FAR more valuable than you are !"

A joke, I know, but very sobering. Apparently, the gun is fired over their heads. The noise is enough, (hopefully), to get them to back-off !

[NEILL THE NOTORIOUS]

I dont approve of poisoning any animals, other than Rats -- for whom there is really no alternative.
I prefer the shot --- although there are too many "Would-be" Marksmen --- who are not !

When we were in Ny Alesund, in Spitsbergen, it is mostly inhabited by Polar Scientists, and I noticed that every one carried a rifle, not for their own protection, but to scare away Polar Bears. --- In Summer (No Ice ) anything that moves is FOOD !

The only time I have been scared (By an Animal !) was shooting Wild Boar in Germany --- the sight of a Ginormous Tusker bearing down on you, who has already absorbed one shot, gives one concentration on one's future --- and the next shot !!!

I have always claimed --as a professional Soldier -- to be a congenital Coward .
With one VC and one DCM in the Family -- it seemed reasonable !!


Where has this Topic got to --- sorry EnglishAngel --- To where has this Topic got ?

[Fjgrogan]

Let's just rename it 'Wild Life' - plenty of scope there for JR and Neill? A few years ago we had a mouse in the house, which apparently was a baby fieldmouse. My husband kept threatening to throw heavy things at it, which I didn't like. However I agreed reluctantly to poison in the form of little blue pellets. I still wasn't keen on the idea, but eventually I discovered that something had broken into the stored box of poison - well really, what is the point of me sticking up for the mouse if it then goes and commits suicide?!

[sejintenej]

A few years ago we had a mouse in the house, I agreed reluctantly to poison in the form of little blue pellets. I still wasn't keen on the idea, but eventually I discovered that something had broken into the stored box of poison - well really, what is the point of me sticking up for the mouse if it then goes and commits suicide?!

Talking of things wild, being on a farm we get all sorts of things like bats in the fireplace, owls in the barn, moles in the veg patch, snake-catching eagles over our heads, mice everywhere, wild pigs and the horrible "Loire Gris"

Imagine an object which looks like a small squirrel (it's actually the size of a red squirrel which we see here - say 6 inch body, 6 inch furry tail), the face of a bat and which walks up the wall inside the house. Nasty isn't the word for them; they eat cables including our satellite aerial wire - others have had power cables eaten even though they are in protective ducting. Poison doesn't work, ordinary traps don't work - they are intelligent and strong but I do have a huge cage trap and they love slices of apples; we caught one a day for two weeks one autumn!
I'm told that the Romans took these edible dormice to England as food - rather them than me.

[Fjgrogan]

I think of mice as hamsters with tails, and since we used to keep hamsters I really don't want to kill them; at least with poison they crawl away somewhere else before it takes effect and I don't have to handle the body - although I dread to think what might be lurking under our floorboards. with the prospect of visiting grandchildren, I suspect that the odd mouse would probably be less harmful than pots of little blue pellets to be found by a baby or toddler! However, don't worry Maria; we haven't seen a mouse in ages - not since we replaced the boiler and bricked up the hole where the flue used to be. Incidentally when we had hamsters, when one died we used to put it in a Lemsip box and bury it under the rosemary bush in the garden - because 'rosemary is for remembrance' - our rosemary bushes are really flourishing!!

[Jo]

I like live traps for mice, but you have to take them some distance away to let them out, otherwise they come straight back in again! We also use home-made traps, which consist of me keeping the cats away and a way clear to the front door, while Chris dives round the kitchen (or wherever) with a yogurt pot in one hand and a piece of stiff card in another. It works better than you might think.

One of my friends is a pest controller and he is really anti the idea of poisons being available for the public to buy and use - and not just because it takes business away from him. You never know where the poison might eventually end up in the food chain. I don't like the idea of poison myself, partly because the animals usually die in agony, and partly because I would like to know where the body is to remove it!

[Ajarn Philip]

Hmm, re the last 2 posts: what about rats then? After all, they're just big mice, aren't they?
(And much nearer the size of a hamster! )

[Jo]

Don't go there..........touch wood, the cats have never yet brought a rat in! I don't know what I'd do if they did - ask my pestie friend, I suppose

I went out to lunch with a rat a few months ago. We have a friend who's a real basket case (more so even than the rest of them ), and she arrived at the restaurant with her pet rat stuffed in her cleavage. It wasn't well so she didn't want to leave it at home. We had to keep warning her when its tail appeared through her blouse buttons, in case the staff noticed. Then it came to the cinema with us. Even her husband was embarrassed

[Ajarn Philip]

Blimey, Jo, I thought some of my friends were a bit potty...

How did she know it wasn't well? (Rhetorical question, of course!)

[Ajarn Philip]

Actually, that has just reminded me of a little story - hope I'm not repeating something I've told you before...

When I was 40 I was at drama school in Guildford, sharing a house with a couple of female fellow students. One morning I was summoned to the kitchen by a scream. I rushed down and was confronted by a very large rat sitting on the worktop, not moving. Although alive, it clearly was not in the best of health - the tail was twitching, but it obviously wasn't going anywhere. It had a rather resigned look in its eyes, and I almost felt sorry for the revolting creature. Had it been anything else, I'd have picked it up and tossed it far away, but it was... well... a rat... I eventually summoned up the courage to find our largest saucepan. I'm not really into beating things to death, so I... well... I... I just covered it up. It's tail, of course, was still sticking out o the saucepan (memory suggests it was about 3 feet long, but that may be a slight exaggeration). I then boldly called the council and waited for a real man to appear. (Fortunately the girls had disappeared into town, so they saw none of this.) Council chappy with thick gloves arrives, lifts saucepan, says "hmm", takes it outside and dispatches it with a large brick (the wonders of modern science).

When the girls got back (having phoned first!), they asked me what had happened to the rat. "Don't worry," said your hero modestly, "I got rid of it."

(If I have told this story before and this version differs in any way whatsoever, I claim the right of poetic licence in my defence.)

[jhopgood]

When I was 40 I was at drama school in Guildford, sharing a house with a couple of female fellow students.

Was that the school just off Madrid Road? I have a house in Sandalwood, just off the back of that school.
Council people are pretty thick skinned about these things.
I found a dead Fox in the tree outside my mother's back door. They are a plague on the South East London Council estate where she used to live. Apparently it went along the wall and slipped as it got down, hanging itself in the branches. The Council man said he had seen quite a lot like that and collected at least one a week as they slipped getting over wooden fences with the triangular bit on top. All in a day's work as far as he was concerned.
Once in Costa Rica I heard a sound coming from the dustbin, and when I investigated, was confronted with a weasel like animal. I was about to try and trap it when it made this growling sound, and I left the house in a hurry. It had left when I came back, but I was always very careful when I threw the rubbish away after that.

[Fjgrogan]

More by luck than judgement I can bring this thread right back on topic!!!! This morning I varnished the bathroom floor to seal new cork tiles. Two hours later I returned to a freezing bathroom - window left open to get rid of the smell - to find stuck to the floor (you guessed it!) a spider - not quite dead, but too far gone to rescue. I squashed it and scraped up the remains and threw them out of the window. And yes, JR, before you say it - he (probably she) did have a beautiful finish! Now to embark on the second coat of varnish - I think I shall close the window this time.

[J.R.]

Being a nice but cool day, we have our patio doors wide open.

A couple of spiders decided to vacate the front room for the garden to enjoy the weather. Our ginger boy, Toby was stretched out by the doors enjoying the sunshine as the two spiders marched past him.

It really was a 'Garfield' moment ! Those of you who read the Daily Mail will truly understand !

[Jo]

Blimey, Jo, I thought some of my friends were a bit potty...

How did she know it wasn't well? (Rhetorical question, of course!)

It was never the same after her husband stepped on it in the night. She has them running free in her bedroom