Snails

It rained during the night on Saturday, so on Sunday morning the garden was full of snails. Here is a photo of one which I found on a terracotta pot. It is easy to take these garden 'pests' for granted, but when you look at them closely they are really quite amazing animals. I thought the shell on this one was particularly beautiful with colours ranging from pale yellow to deep magenta.

Rodents by the river

This week we filmed mice and shrews by the River Congost. We left the camera very close to the river where there was a lot of plant cover but easy access to the water. We put some sardines as bait and thought we might capture some footage of American mink but this time it was only rodents that came to investigate our bait and camera.

A lot of the daytime videos just showed plants blowing in the breeze and maybe some insects buzzing past. Of the 37 videos which had rodents in them, I have chosen two to share here. One shows a shrew (possibly a common shrew - Sorex araneus) coming in from the right and then being chased off by another rodent. It happens so quickly it's hard to see if it is another shrew or a mouse! The other video shows a mouse (possibly a wood mouse - Apodemus sylvaticus) running and jumping about.

A mystery spider

Yesterday I found an interesting spider living in the bottom of our guinea pig hutch. I scooped it out carefully and took some photos. I'm not sure what the species is, so if anyone can help with that I'd love to hear from you! My guess at the moment is that it is a female Steatoda bipunctata but please correct me if I am wrong. This species is also known as the "rabbit hutch spider" which seems appropriate considering where I found it.