Tag: animals
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Pigeon destringers strike again
Ben and I untangled the toe of another urban pigeon today. This one we found by the King Edward the VII statue on Union Street. There are several stringfoot pigeons in this flock but I’ve not managed to catch any of them until today. This bird was quite young and I don’t think there’s any…
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Lucille 01/2024 – 05/2026
Lucille our roborovski hamster died last week. She was nearly 2.5 years old which is very good in hamster years especially considering she nearly died of cancer at 9 months of age. The vet said back then that the tumour would likely return and it did about a month ago. We opted not to put…
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Pigeon patrol
Ben and I went on another pigeon patrol to the Harriet Street flock today which has become a somewhat regular activity. A gull turned up and ate some of the sunflower seeds. He must have been hungry as I’ve never seen a gull show interest in sunflower seeds before. Admittedly there were a few calciworms…
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Victorian toilets and another pigeon destrung
Last Friday I was wandering around Aberdeen city centre checking out venues for the North Atlantic Fiddle Convention as I’m a volunteer lead organising the busking trails for the event. One of the venues we booked are the Victorian toilets beneath Union Street. They’re obviously no longer toilets and indeed smell a lot nicer than…
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Rachel 1; pigeons 5
For the past couple of weeks I’ve been trying to catch some pigeons with stringfoot at a local shopping centre. Stringfoot is a common affliction among urban pigeons where thread gets tightly tangled around their toes, cutting off the blood supply and eventually the birds loses a toe or sometimes the whole foot. It must…
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Disability in animals
The gull we tried to save this week was euthanised by the vet on Tuesday. I haven’t felt like writing about it as I still feel upset. The surgery was never performed and so I refunded everyone who donated to the fundraiser because that money was meant to pay for surgery to fix Piper’s broken…
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More on the fox cam
We discovered a dog bowl near the railway line not far from where we’ve been feeding Rita’s family and this morning I went down to pick up some of the rubbish that’s there as it’s an awful mess. As I was putting stuff in the bin two little cubs appeared looking at me hopefully. One…
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Rita the fox
Earlier this week someone shared a photo of a poorly fox on an Aberdeen Facebook group. Her tail is missing all its fur and part of her back is also looking raw. She is suffering from mange which is easily treated with a tablet. We’re lucky in the UK to have the Fox Angels Foundation…
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Banchory Lodge Hotel and garden wildlife
Mum and I had lunch with some friends at Banchory Lodge Hotel last week to celebrate my friend’s birthday. It was lovely. We had a table right beside the river with captivating views as you can see in the photo. There’s nothing vegan on the menu but if you let the waiter know the chef…
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Mammary tumours in hamsters
I can’t believe I’m writing another post about a sick hamster but unfortunately that is the case. We adopted Lucille just over a month ago from a hamster rescue in Fife. Unlike our previous rescue hamster, Lucille was young and we were hoping to have at least a year of healthy hamster with her. Lucille…
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Animal friends and summer days
About a month ago our hamster Ruby died. She was slowing down and starting to struggle to walk. It was extra sad because we hadn’t had her for very long. I think she must have been quite old already when we adopted her from the SPCA. I guess this is one of the downsides of…
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Willows Animal Sanctuary
Yesterday we visited Willows Animal Sanctuary just north of Aberdeen. They rescue abandoned farm and domestic animals and give them a home to live out the rest of their lives in peace. They’re a charity entirely dependent on donations and have struggled over the past few years, first with covid, now with the cost of…
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Another hamster death and the fox returns
Daisy our hamster is dead. After Bella died earlier this month I decided I wasn’t going to make the same mistake with Daisy and a few weeks ago I took her to the vet. It can be hard to tell when a hamster is unwell as they’re out at night when we’re asleep and both…
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Feeding and bathing the birds
The magpies and slugs now eat the food I leave out for the hedgehogs. I know because I leave the camera out on it overnight and there’s very little activity from anything else. Something that did surprise me is how popular a bowl of water is. I was going to throw away a chipped pasta…
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Happiness is …
… seeing our first guest in the pond hotel. Can you spot him? We hope you liked it, Mr Toad!
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Hedgehog cam
Every morning now I wake up, check the wildlife camera with great excitement and see hedgehogs. The first one is usually seen around 10pm. Then there’s often activity around midnight, 3am, and the last at around 6am. I have no idea how many there are as I only ever see one at a time so…
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Gardens as habitat for wildlife
There’s still no sign of the elusive hedgehogs. I have no idea whether they’re still in our garden or not. Hedgehogs can travel up to 2 miles in one night so probably they’re not but I hope they visit us from time-to-time. I continue to put food out for them along with the wildlife camera…
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Meet Horace and Hortensia
We adopted two hedgehogs today from The North East Wildlife & Animal Rescue Centre. They put out a call recently on social media looking for homes for hedgehogs. They had 140 of them. To qualify for a hedgehog you have to provide them with a house in the backyard, food and water, live away from…
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Sniffing for hamster piss
When we first got hamsters I wasn’t expecting to spend my evenings and weekends sniffing hamster bedding for hamster piss but this is what we do now. For a while Bella was peeing in a sand bath which was great as I didn’t need to go searching for her toilet but she’s stopped doing that…
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Fantastic Mr Fox
We were all very excited to see a fox in our backyard today. We sometimes see foxes in the neighbourhood but this is the first time we’ve seen one in our yard. He was eating the peanuts from a bird feeder that had fallen to the ground. At first I thought it was a dog…
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