Wild Things
Living in the heart of the countryside, we do get quite a lot of animal life paying us a visit. Some of it is very welcome. For example, we get a large variety of birdlife - from blue tits and chaffinches, to the buzzards and kestrels overhead. Sometimes the kestrel likes to sit in the tree with the bird feeder in it, just to terrorise the smaller birds, and the crows like to chase the buzzards away, but usually we are happy to see the birds here.
It’s different with other animals. A lot of the mammals here spend as much time as posible trying to cause us problems. Next to our house we have preserved a couple of acres as a kind of ‘wildlife reserve’ - trees are allowed to grow, no pesticides are used, and so on. A little refuge for the animals of the region that need to get away from the toxic chemicals the farmer like to spray around from time to time. So all the problems we have are of our own making…
Moles and mice are the smallest visitors we see a lot of. Neither is a big problem unless they get in the house (mice) or in the garden (moles). Which of course they both do, and Mrs Boris is forever setting mole-traps to try and get rid of them. These traps don’t work, and neither do the explosive devices you can use (this is true!). The other problem with mole traps is that about five centimetres of metal is left sticking out of the ground, ready for the children to trip over every time they play outside.
She has had some success sticking rose cuttings into the tunnels (good news - quite a few of them have taken root, and we will soon have a new rose garden in the middle of the lawn) but really nothing sems to work too well.
Rabbits seem to take over completely from time to time, then disappear again. At the moment they are everywhere, digging up the strawberry plants and generally causing mayhem. They don’t seem to eat the plants too much though, so this is not a big concern.
Next up are the ragondin (coypu). Tracked down and shot be the local hunters at every opportunity, because they cause havoc to the waterways, we have a few of these who live in a stream, but they haven’t caused us any problems so far. They do make a pretty scary noise at dawn and dusk though - the kind of noise that features in Blair Witch Project and makes you wish you were safely locked up inside.
Bigger still, and much more damaging, are the deer. These pass across our territory quite often. Usually they seem to just be out for a walk, or are running to escape the hunters, but once or twice a year they decide to bite in half every tree that they pass. This is quite discouraging when you have spent three years watching a tree grow, only to see it chopped in half overnight. I have tried fencing the more obvious entry points, but to be honest as we have about 500 metres of unfenced boundary I am wasting my time.
Electric fencing is the only practical solution, but it probably isn’t worth the time and expense.
Last up are the wild boar. Always ‘the threat that will one day arrive’ our neighbours have had these pass through, but we have not yet. They snuffle, scratch, and dig and cause a remarkable amount of damage in a short period of time. They are very big and you do not want to come across an angry one in the woods. Apparently it is similar to meting a bear in the Canadian outback, although I presume this is an exaggeration. We saw a chicken coop a while ago which a wildboar had run through, simpy flattening the fence to get in and then doing the same again on the other side to get out again.I saw a ‘wild boar enclosure’ a while ago when out and about, which had two metre high secure fencing all around, and an ominous lack of vegetation on the floor, just bare dug up soil. And this was an enclosure several hectares in size. It looked for all the world like the dinosaur fences in Jurassic Park, with parts of the fence twisted and dented as if the boars were making desperate attempts to escape. It sent a shiver down my spine at the thought of what was lurking behind the trees, so I didn’t stay long.
Loved your comments , when we first arrived in France our two youngest sons aged 18yrs & 21yrs were quite dissappointed to see how far out from civalisation we were, as we had left an English seaside resort . One day we surprised them by returning home with a 5 foot grass snake we had picked up and saved from the middle of the road. another day we had saved a tawny owl which had got caught up in one of our bird cages, our sons soon learnt that they never knew what creature would turn up next , but thats the beauty of living in France.
When we first arrived in France I was often traumatised by big snakes, apparently poisonous salamanders, and a whole range of spooky scary noises. Five years on it would need a dinosaur in the living room to get our attention. The one thing that still spooks me is when I go outside when it’s still dark and an owl screeches right in my ear - it’s had me throwing myself to the ground more than once.
Like you say, all part of the fun!