bats in the belfry?

[ARW]

So did my hedge sparrows. I grounded the cat for 24 hours.

[alan_m]

For me the life cycle concluded with many hundreds of baby spiders abseiling from the loft hatch.

[news]

Dunnock?

My daughter had a young downy herring gull wander into the house today. It will be a few weeks before it flies but as a parent was nearby she put it out.

I've warned her to watch the toddlers as the parent might attack if they go out near it in the garden.

My big excitement was finding a stag beetle on the kitchen floor.

AJH

[Tim Lamb]

In message , [e-mail] writes

A rain beetle would be more useful just now:-)

[ARW]

No idea. I am not a big bird fan. That does not mean that I want fat Toby eating the babies.

Toby would eat it and the mother.

Not seen one of those for a while.

Toby would probably play with it and then try eating it.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Nah mate. whear's looking good, and you wont say that when this hot spell ends with a massive thunderstorm localised flooding and the wheat all laid over flat and disgusted.

[andynexus1]

And true again today ... first thing this morning scratchy feet type noises from the loft on the bedroom ceiling, then nothing. Later I though the postman had pushed something big through the letterbox which was inexorably slipping to the floor as often happens, then a starling suddenly appears in the bedroom and perches on the curtain pole! It had been slowly pushing its way through insulation in the corner of the bathroom where I've moved/replaced a 110mm vent pipe with an 83mm one.

[alan_m]

If its birds pigeons are the most likely culprit, and if so get rid of them as fast as possible. Within a week or so you will be feet deep in pigeon poo. Been there and I have the T shirt. My experience was before having a new roof fitted and I had lost two slates. I put off the repair for a few weeks and my loft was invaded by the local flock of pigeons. Unfortunately for them many were still in the loft when the roof was repaired and being mid summer they soon died. Luckily the heat also rapidly dehyrdated the bodies and I was spared the problem with rotting corpses. When I later went in the loft there were two nests with eggs and a number of dead birds. They had been roosting of the purlins and the amount of shit on them and the boards underneath was substantial. A mask, scraper, vacuum cleaner. mop, scrubbing brush and a garden sprayer filled with bleach later and the area was sanitised allowing for relatively clean storage.

[Andy Burns]

Pigeons here are so fat they'd need a cat-flap to get in.

As I said it was a starling, they do have a history of getting in underneath the cut tiles around the roof vent. I replaced the lead weathering slate with an aluminium one, and replaced adjacent roof tiles when I changed the vent stack from 110mm to 83mm, and put some bird combs on the eaves for good measure ... persistent buggers.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa 2)]

Tunnelling birds? Was it related to a Puffin? Brian

[Brian Gaff (Sofa 2)]

Yes, I gather that birds do not have much on board storage for poo, and hence often eject it wherever they are when their tank is full. I often think that mice do the same thing, but of course mice don't fly. Brian