Toads, Foxes, Birds etc.  The other day a lady asked what she should do about a toad on her door step. This started a discussion on whether it was toad or a frog and having once established that it was a toad, what type. More discussion and they settled on it being a 'Horny Toad'.
What shall I do with it? it's in the way! Pick it up and move it! was the reply. But it looks horrible!    The wife suggested that she could always tie a pink ribbon around it finished with a nice bow to make it look pretty. Then she could move it! I don't remember her answer.

The young foxes are still to be seen, usually crossing the road in front of the car at a distance. We have also heard the cry of a young vixen only a couple of fields away. The scream is high pitched and just noisy, unlike the cry from a fully grown vixen which to my mind is totally blood chilling when heard on a moonlit frosty winter night across the water meadows.

I heard the cry of the Sparrow Hawks last week; not chicks but fully grown young birds. I imagine that the parents have raised a brood nearby and these birds are the result. Earlier in the month we saw two birds of prey circling over the water meadows, quite big but too far away to identify; not Sparrow Hawks.

One night in July I went out of the back door to put something in the wheeliebin and the air seemed very cold; it reminded me of the winter and the feeling was that there would be a frost - but this is July! Unbelievably, the next day, the thermometer registered only 40deg F and that, after the sun had already risen for two hours.

Many leaves and fruits on the outside tomatoes and some of the plants in the greenhouse were drooping and blackened. The fresh shoots on the roses had been hit and were withered. It also affected the begonias, roses, and other succulents in the garden. I have thought about this and the only conclusion is that the plants got very wet, during the night a cold wind has blown, only hitting some plants or parts of plants, freezing and killing them. I have seen this in other years on the beech hedge along the road side between our garden and the road; the young green shoots are sprouting in early spring and one morning brown irregular patches of dead shoots and young leaves have appeared on parts of the hedge. I have put this down to an exceptionally cold breeze as a complete frost would have devastated the whole hedge, not parts of it.

Frogs I had the back door open on a sunny evening in August and a young frog hopped into the kitchen.  It had plenty of energy (being young) and very quickly went over the kitchen floor into the dining room where it hid behind the sideboard, peering out from time to time to see what I was doing.

I had by this time called for Richard who duly picked it up and put it in the pond.  This is the second sighting of a frog I have seen this month. I had come across a tiny one between some bricks  on the far side of the green house.  It is nice to see the frogs around again.  They are useful creatures as they eat many slugs and snails. The Slugs are easily spotted after any rain; I gather them up and dispose of them.

Little Birds The birds are keeping a low profile apart from a robin that follows me around the garden. hoping to find a few morsels, when I pull up some weeds. This month they rest from the labour of bringing up young; they moult and grow new feathers for the Autumn when they gorge on fruit, nuts, and berries. The new feathers help with the colder winter months to come.  With all the rain that we have had this year I suspect that there will be a goodly crop of fruit. We seem to have a fair crop of apples which are already starting to fall.