New arrivals: Part 4

A pair of feeding badgers

The pair feeding on our lawn.

Badger feeding

Usually one comes first and is joined by the second badger later on.

 

First signs that something was afoot was that the compost fence kept getting knocked down. I thought it might be the local magpie flock so I pegged it down with some big tent pegs. It kept on getting knocked down and then I noticed it happened only at night. Not long after I saw a badger in the garden. A little while later a second one.

They are now frequent visitors to our garden, and come every night to eat the food I put out. They have built a toilet just below the garden at the bottom of the slope. Their tracks are easy to spot in the long grass and undergrowth around the house.

 

Kjernebiter…

… or hawfinch to you and me. These birds are very rare in this bit of Norway and they are also very shy. Even if they are in your garden you might not ever see them. This is the second time I have seen one on our feeder since I built it.

Actually there were two hawfinches in the garden today but only one of them was brave enough to come and sit on the feeder. The light was too poor to be certain of the sex of either of the two birds. Having a breeding pair of hawfinches this far north in Gol would be quite exciting.

Hawfinch in Gol

Hawfinch in Gol