Birds, Bugs, and Badgers

First, the Birds
We can hear bird songs almost constantly here in England. Part of the reason is that there are so many different kinds of birds. We are also living in a very small rural community. We hear dove sounds every morning and evening. The biggest reason, though, for hearing so many birds is that our windows are open most of the time now, because the temperature outside is so nice.(Good thing, since there is no AC) Daytime highs are 68-75 degrees; nighttime lows are 45-52 degrees.




The open windows bring me to the next part---the Bugs:
England, at least this part of it, is blessed with almost no mosquitos! That is a good thing ---- because there are no window screens. So when we open the windows, whatever is outside can come inside! There are not very many insects to bother us. Flies do live in England---small ones and also big "horse flies", so some of them enjoy coming in the house, especially if there are cooking smells! Spiders are also somewhat of a nuisance, but most are tiny ones. Everyday when I go outside to hang the washing on the line, I have to knock down all of the spider webs that have appeared overnight. Bees and butterflies love all of the flowers in England!

Last of all, we "have stinking Badgers" (line from an old movie):
Badgers are very common in England. They like to eat earthworms, bugs, lizards, small birds, etc. We have one that comes through a hole under our back fence and digs in our tiny flowerbeds every night! He knocks the bark mulch out of the small flower beds onto the brick patio.
Badgers must like going out onto the roads to find bugs, because it is very common to see them dead beside the roads. I read that if a badger makes it to one year of age, the most common cause of death is road traffic. (Today on the way back to Martock from Yeovil (about 15 min.), we saw 3 badgers beside the road.) They are a protected animal here----no one can kill them. It is also illegal to destroy their tunnels without special permission. This week the owners of our apartment wanted to do a little landscaping at the back of our yard (they call it "garden"), and they had to decide what to do about the badger hole. The final decision was to frame the hole and leave it as an entrance for the badger!