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Sheffields Flora and Fauna


Guest Trefcon

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They're all over the place now aren't they HD ? I often find myself on my way home in the early hours and I would think it unusual if I didn't see any.

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Following the recent theft of a brand new car from a neighbours drive, ( he got it back, by the way ), I decided to install some CCTV.

One camera covers my drive with a peek through the gates to the pavement beyond.

To my surprise it is capturing images of numerous nefarious characters every night.

Urban foxes !

It's a very quiet night, if we dont see at least 4 different ones.

There's Wile E. Coyote, who seems to have had a major tussle with something above his class. He looks very dishevelled and limps badly, which slows him down a lot.

There's a dog fox with a brush so thick that it looks like a continuation of his body. There's another who seems to have lost all the fur off his brush which looks like a pipe cleaner.

There are some slightly smaller foxes which I presume are vixens or growing cubs.

One thing I have noticed is that they walk precisely down the centre of the pavement or my drive and appear to cross the road at right angles.

They must have been taking road safety lessons from "Tufty Fluffytail", the squirrel. :)

We have a naturewatch viewing each morning when we review the recordings.

HD

Apologies for the poor picture, taken by camera off the TV screen.

You can not tell the sex of a fox by it's size, or by the length or shape of it's tail (brush).

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You can not tell the sex of a fox by it's size, or by the length or shape of it's tail (brush).

...unless you are another fox.

In which case you can probably tell by pheromone scent.

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You don't have to be sensitive to fox pheromones to be able to smell a dog fox, they stink rank.

My one time neighbour was complaining to me that his big garden compost heap was giving off a very nasty smell.

I suggested to him that it might be a good idea to turn it over with a garden fork.

While I watched over the wall he started to do this and almost had a seizure when a very angry dog fox leapt out and almost knocked him over.

The resulting smell was so rank that he had to leave it and we both dashed inside.

In a previous existence I had big problems with foxes causing damage and used to use a foul smelling fox repellent called something like Reynardin.

The problem was it smelt almost as rank as the foxes.

HD

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I saw something which surprised me whilst on Abbeydale Road a few days ago.

I was approaching the traffic lights at the entrance to the Sainsbury's supermarket. A rat ran across the road some distance in front of me closely followed, almost at ground level, by a large crow. The crow made a grab for it at about the centre, but only managed to bowl it over. The rat gained the pavement at the other side, again chased by the crow but by this time the rat was running along close to the wall so the crow couldn't get close enough. It was all over in a few seconds and what happened after that I don't know because they were very soon behind the van.

I know that crows do take small mammals, and even larger ones when in a group, but I was surprised to see a lone crow attack something as large (and fierce) as a rat.

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Saw this spider catch a very small insect last night, the spider doesn't use a web. The spider itself was smaller than a match head.

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Saw this spider catch a very small insect last night, the spider doesn't use a web. The spider itself was smaller than a match head.

Zebra Spider?

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Zebra Spider?

I don't know we didn't introduce ourselves! Joking apart you are correct his Latin name is SALTICUS SCENICUS.

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That's what I call a nice photo of a nice photo W/E

:)

Taken in summer 1990. It was early one morning looking towards the ski slope, never seen anything like it before or since. Still one or two of the old VHF telly aerials around then also. W/E.

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Hillsborough Corner last Friday. Not my greatest shots as the camera was set up for tram photography with a street/sky background and I didn't have time to adjust for the shadows being unfavourable.

i-HWRdtnd-L.jpg

i-HFjzNXV-L.jpg

 

 

 

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