cherries!!!

[suebee]

well in our front garden is this cherry tree my husband has been nurturing since we brought it near 12yrs ago, i use the term tree loosely, its more like a stick with leaves, but none the less every yr it fruits, and he then wages war on the green fly etc but he leaves nature to do its thing, an leave it to the ants to do there thing

anyway nut has been her usual nutty self, and today has been rather funny, well when i realised why!

it started a few days ago, she flew at the front room window, but wasn't a loud bang an she seemed fine if not just lookin really annoyed, so bein the coward i am i left her to it!
she has also been tappin the window with her beak?? and squawkin loud (not like her)

when ever i look out of the window nothiing, other then the cherry tree with a few cherries showing

well today as i sat by the pc, she lands on my head, an flaps her wings while clinging onto my hair!:11:
when i stand to pop her onto her cage, thats in front of the front room window, there it was just behind the leaves a black bird eating the cherries!:32:
mean while nuts gone onto her cage roof an all fluffed up an mumbling a bucket load!! glaring at the black bird! just visible!

so i tap the window an the black bird just looks at me, and continues eating lmao that was to much for nut, she went well, nuts, fluffing up, squarwkin, even pretend flappin

anyway while she was mildly loosing the plot over this brazen cherry pincher, i go out, an nut see's me from inside, an seemed to calm down lol an pick a few ripe ones the black bird missed

well lets just say, i have never seen her eat anything so intently as these cherries an they were not even sweet! lmao:30: oh an she even climbed onto the roof of her cage, with the cherry, i think it was to make sure the black bird could see her eating them!!!:32:

 

[merlinsmom13]

Too funny, I guess you showed that black bird. She depends on you to defend the outside things. lol Nuts queen of that roost & that black bird knows it now. Merlin has a crow friend (NOT), he flys to whichever tree he can get closest to Merlin & just sits. Merlin screams the roof down, I move him & close the blinds & here comes the crow to find him.

Our cherries have came & gone, same story as you on the cherry tree. I did get a cobbler this year. A black bear broke 2 of the branches out trying to climb it for the cherries, lucky that Merlin can't see it from the house.

 

[suebee]

lmao funny how they instictively know whats just not on!!!

i am nut (merlin) hear my roar lol

 

[mrob]

A BEAR?? Merlinsmom, whoa, thats a lot for a girl from little old NZ to get her head around.
You have BEARS stealing your cherries?
BEARS????? Lol

 

[merlinsmom13]

Yes he has been coming around all summer. My husband was that I broke branches from his cherry twig, I mean tree. lol I told him I didnt do it, the neighbor called him & told him he saw it,,, in the tree. His barn is close to the twig,,tree. He hasn't bothered anything, just sightings.

 

[mtdoramike]

That's just too funny/

 

[Rio Mom]

We haven't had any bear problems yet (just bought our place a year ago yesterday though). My parents however, have teeth holes in the lids of their trash cans from bears! lol.

 

[mrob]

Gosh! I had never really thought about bears lol. We dont have native mammals here -only birds..... well, we have one mammal, but its a bat lol.
We have you usual cats and dogs but omg, BEARS? Ha! Crazy!
Ill have to get up to the northern hemisphere one day and see one for myself!

 

[Rio Mom]

No native mammals other than bats?! Wow! Now that's hard for me to wrap my head around! Lol no bears, deer, raccoons, possums, bobcats, coyote, squirrels, chipmunks, etc ,etc ,etc???

 

[suebee]

lmao @ twig tree bless

an i am glad it wasn't a bear i had to shooo off lol

 

[mrob]

No native mammals other than bats?! Wow! Now that's hard for me to wrap my head around! Lol no bears, deer, raccoons, possums, bobcats, coyote, squirrels, chipmunks, etc ,etc ,etc???

Nope no native mammals except for the little bat. Because we are so isolated, we just evolved thousands of different bird species that filled the ecological niches of your little mammals. SO we had flightless, scurrying birds that did what mice do, Giant birds called Moa (sort of like an ostrich, but performed the function of a cow or a bison) and then huge eagles big enough to pick them up and eat them - the Maori tribes hunted the moa for food and once the numbers of moa started getting low, these giant eagles would take and kill fully grown men. (and we have BIG men, lol).
But the counry is very young, only had people in it for about 800 years, before that, just birds! You can imagine the devastation to the ecosystem that happened when settlers turned up with rats, stoats, cats etc.......
Its a very unique little corner of the world we have got here!! And now, the australian possum is our biggest pest, and we spend millions of dollars a year trying to eradicate them as they are decimating our forests....blimmen aussies lol.
So if you were in NZ a thoudand years ago, you would have animals just like your racoons, mice, possums etc, but they would all be birds!! And DEFINITLY no bears!!

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbdwn4mGmZ8]YouTube - ‪Haast's eagle-New Zealand giant eagle‬‏[/ame]

 

[merlinsmom13]

New Zealand is a very unique place. We have alot of mammals here. Rio mom you forgot coyotes, & my personal favorite skunk. Also foxes, we have a grey fox nesting somewhere close to us, we see it sometimes @ night. We live in a residental area, but the logging that is going on here is driving somethings out. They had to remove a bear from the downtown area, they shot it w/tranquilizer darts & took it away. They then collar them for tracking, if it shows up more than twice, they destroy it. Some world huh? They're hell on trash cans, but dont seem to bother anything else. Usually young bears, females w/cubs are another story, they're very dangerous, but they don't seem to come around residental areas. Coyotes are coming back here, they don't look like the small desert coyotes, they are huge & look like a small wolf. We saw one in our driveway, very scary looking animal, monsterous, the first thing I thought of was direwolf. At least they run from you, that giant eagle is truly the stuff nightmares are made of. lol

 

[merlinsmom13]

Suebee what kind of mammals run around the UK?

 

[Rio Mom]

Ahhhh yes, skunks..... aren't they lovely? lol. Fox are beautiful oh and bunnies! We forgot them! My home is in a very rural area. Occasionally we hear of a mountain lion sighting. There's woods behind my house full of all kinds or critters. Now, a bird big enough to eat people, that sounds scarey!

 

[suebee]

lol merlin, nothing dangerous but some really cute ones

near me are deers, hares an rabbits, voles, foxes, moles and teenagers (semi feral animals)

but down south theres mink thanks to the animal rights ppl that released them back in the 70's i think?? weasels etc

and i think in scotland moose have been introduced?? as there was a documentry on it, though not sure how thats gone on and the releasing wild wolves got vito-er lol

 

[merlinsmom13]

No fearsome black hounds of the moors, I'm disappointed. Moose are very scary far north of us. Thankfully the teenagers close by are extinct or ranging somewhere else. lol

 

[suebee]

no hounds of the baskeviles lol but some say there are wild jaguars etc but no evidance lol

teenagers here are not as vicious as the city ones thank god! and i have one currently on his xbox muttering away to himself, the promise of icecream an chocolate is keepin him in check! lol

i'd love to visit NZ mrob, it just one of them places you imagine packed with wild life!

 

[Karigan]

We get black bears here mostly, occasionally linx and cougar, but I'd say the scariest mammal we have is the full grown male moose dashing across the road One friends of mine had a car so low that she sped right between one's legs. True story!

 

[merlinsmom13]

My sister caught this early this morning.

I have proof I didnt break the branch.

 

[Karigan]

Haha, looks like my neighborhood!