Mundane News

[biggs682]

Clear blue skies with just a few very minor fluffy clouds here .
14deg C so quite mild.

 

[Illaveago]

Morning! It is raining, which was not in my plan for today. Solar people coming back today, hopefully to remedy a couple of glitches that somehow resulted in yesterday being one of our most expensive electric days ever

Just seen a couple of small gaps I this grey overcast sky . The wind is blowing West to East .
Sorry to hear of your delay.

 

[Tenkaykev]

Squally rain is gusting across the road. It's been a while, but I'll jump on the Turbo trainer.

 

[woodbutchmaster]

Pity there is no equivalent to the Cats Protection League (la ligue de protection des chats, peut-etre?) over there ... I wasn't suggesting you do it yourself, that would be unreasonable. They're not your cats after all.

Feral (or, preferably, for everyone's health and comfort, semi-feral) cats in the right numbers, the right place and under the right conditions - and neutered - are a brilliant aid when hobby-farming, larger scale gardening, housing livestock, poultry-keeping etc - but are a menace to native wildlife if in the wrong place and especially the wrong numbers (and if not neutered they soon will be in the wrong numbers)...

To be fair l can't blame feral cats for every misdemeanour since there are also those very beautiful but murderous creatures , polecats . They have no fear of human beings l frequently see them and it is obvious that they have seen me but they couldn't care less . I suppose if you are a top predator you become blasé with regard others. Bit like us maybe

 

[Mo1959]

Glad I didn’t venture out. It just suddenly got really dark and we now have lashing rain.

 

[oldwheels]

Your aggressor might well have been Blennius Pholis..
View attachment 665836

Easy to catch, and amusing in an aquarium, but they'll be quite dominant!

I also had a local marine aquarium when I lived overlooking the sea in Cliftonville, Kent. Great fun scouring the rock pools for aquatic wildlife.

I looked them up and it was butterfish which feeds on small crustaceans and other invertebrates which explains why everything went into hiding while they were in the tank.

 

[oldwheels]

my Dad used to like to tell us kids, that one time he mistook Brylcreem for toothpaste

In my case it was Savlon. Yuk.

 

[oldwheels]

Wet and windy with warnings of ferry disruption.
We now have the somewhat strange combination of three ferry timetables and two bus timetables depending on dates and which ferry combination is on. Those who do not drive are having problems working out the various permutations to arrange day trips to Oban for hospital appointments.

 

[postman]

Day orf painting.Going to Salts Mill wiv Mrs P,going to see the two exhibitions we missed a couple of weeks ago.

 

[biggs682]

Bl@@dy rabbit droppings

 

[Jameshow]

Day orf painting.Going to Salts Mill wiv Mrs P,going to see the two exhibitions we missed a couple of weeks ago.

Walk over to the Roberts park, half moon cafe at 1.30pm and I'll buy you a coffee!!

The cafe in the mill is good too though.

 

[rockyroller]

He mistook this
View attachment 665881
for this!
View attachment 665882
Did you never question how?

a long time ago it came in a tube

View: https://youtu.be/o6F4GtyRfto

 

[rockyroller]

got some sleep last night, shud be better today

 

[oldwheels]

Bl@@dy rabbit droppings

There was an old tinker guy at Torwood near Falkirk who collected them and rolled them in melted tar from the road. These were then sold to the gullible as cold cures.
This would have been very early 1940's when I was about 6 years old.

 

[KnittyNorah]

To be fair l can't blame feral cats for every misdemeanour since there are also those very beautiful but murderous creatures , polecats . They have no fear of human beings l frequently see them and it is obvious that they have seen me but they couldn't care less . I suppose if you are a top predator you become blasé with regard others. Bit like us maybe

Polecats are native and naturally wild; feral cats are unfortunately not so ... and are successful in almost any environment such that they can/will both hugely damage the native wildlife AND compete very successfully against smaller native predators who have evolved in a 'balance' with their prey. I love the mustelid predators - the best household pets I've ever had have been a pair of ex-working ferrets. Mind you the second best was a specific cat.

A well-managed TNR scheme will reduce the cat predation gradually over a period, thus allowing reestablishment of both native prey AND native predators, and neither will become a real nuisance unless of course you are a gamekeeper rearing and releasing targets for your employer.

If only we could train up feral cats to hunt invasive vermin only ... this is why the neutered semi-feral schemes can be so useful - it pushes them into a living situation where in effect their hunting is for the benefit of man and the main prey species are nuisance species. But of course it relies on their being some regular interaction with humans and is of no use to the truly feral cats of eg the Australian bush. Or of the French woodlands, by the sound of it!