More bats last night

Last night, after I'd published yesterday's post I found this really tiny bat on the floor by the door.  I photographed it next to a lipstick to show the scale - it was very tiny. 

Then, when I came back from the field there was another bat in the house, this time on the floor in the kitchen area. It was much bigger than the other two and after taking some photos I put it with the other two into the little hen house.

 I've been playing Short Mat Bowls all day and went up to the field on the way home.  Today I collected five eggs from 15-16 potential laying hens.  They have really dropped off laying and I can only put it down to the weather which is alternately very wet and very warm throughout the day and it's been like this for weeks.   Although five eggs is not a number, it's the best for ten days.  Hens seem to like everything to stay the same.  They like their nest box in the same place with the same hens - hate it when new ones are introduced, the same weather - they don't do well with change. 

No more bats so far today, so I hope it stays that way.

Three things I like:

1.   Getting a really huge bag of stale bread from the supermarket for the hens, ducks, goats, and rabbits for the princely sum of three euros.
2.   Cutting slices off the lovely boiled collar bacon joint I have just cooked - it tastes delicious.
3.   Whizzing home in the sunshine with the hood down on the car and arriving just in time to put the hood up again as it starts to rain.

Bats, hares and new black chick

It has been a week for wildlife in St André.  I have been thinking that they could have filmed Springwatch here.

Over the last seven or eight days I have had three bats in the downstairs living area and one in my bedroom.  I don't have any doors or windows without flyscreens and the only opening flyscreen is on the door, so how a bat got into my bedroom I have no idea.  It was 5.15am when I woke to find it flying around and it took me half an hour to get it out of my bedroom and a further half hour to get it out of the landing window after it had perched on the top of the towel I was holding in front of my face.  This morning I moved the shoe box by the outside door and there was a bat asleep on the floor - here are two photos of it before I set it free.

The next photo I took was of my new little black chick - the only survivor from nine eggs which a broody Lavender Pekin was sitting on.  The egg hatched on Tuesday evening and this photo shows the chick today at six days old.  Today was the first time her foster Mum took her down the ramp from the house to the run and the grass.  She's so lively and running around all over the place.  I wonder what sort of hen she'll turn out to be.

When I went up to the field this afternoon to sow some more lettuce seeds in the polytunnel and beetroot seeds in the veggie garden I saw these.

At first I thought they were rabbits and then realised because they are so angular rather than softly curved and had such long ears that they must be hares.

I can't believe I was able to take these photographs as hares are usually really nervous and run off at the slightest movement.

I went to Writers' Group before I went up on the field to garden, and as we turned off the N164 to my friend's house, there was a garden on the opposite side of the dual carriageway with the most wonderful wildflower front garden.  As we came back home I took my life in my hands and crossed both lanes of the road and took these photos.

The bed along the terrace against my house has a wonderful clematis against it with nasturtians at it's feet.

Unbelievably, I was just going to publish this post when I saw something peeping round the edge of my fireplace.  It was another bat, but a really, really tiny one, with tiny weeny teeth compared to this morning's example.

I took it down to show some guests staying with me and took a photo.

I've put the two bats together in the little house and run which the chicks were in to keep them warm and hopefully they'll fly off when they want to.  I'm off to put the hens and ducks away now and then to bed - hopefully no more bats today.

Three things I like:

1.   All the wildlife I get here, but I'd prefer not to have bats in the house please.

2.   Sowing more seeds for veggies which I shall be eating in a few weeks or months.

3.   It hasn't rained all day in St André, and I haven't been able to say that for a long time.