Her Indoors* discovered this hole in her vegetable patch, which wasn't there a week ago. The 12" ruler is there to give an idea of the scale. Any thoughts?
* Obviously, Her Indoors was Outdoors at the time she noticed it.
Wednesday, 24 June 2009
Hole
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18 comments:
It's a footprint
Fox attempting to bury something...?
Veg Liberation Army? Or maybe a thieving veggie.
This is odd.Exactly the same kind of thing has appeared on my allotment.It has tiny pieces of blue,looks like chewed, plastic at the bottom.The allotment field is frequented by badgers. I once saw a muntjac deer but never told anyone lest I be thought strange.
Its a 'foot'fall -of earth
I have seen one of these before......I have examined the photo carefully and showed a friend to is a forensic expert and we have come to the conclusion that its a hole.
I get this kind of thing fairly regularly on my allotment. I've never caught anything in the act, but the fox explanation seems the best to me.
The foxes are leaving them all over my garden too
It is a fox I would bet good money on it
It's a particularly small species of aliens' version of a crop circle.
Could be a gopher.
If so there's a documentary film about how to get rid of them. "Caddy Shack" I think it was called.
Definitely fox.
Extent of digging and its possible underlying causal factors in penned blue foxes
http://www.springerlink.com/content/xcbu0uc3kyyc6v7m/
Foxes were observed to dig for the following reasons: (1) to make a hole or a resting site, (2) to locate an escape route, (3) to cache food, faeces, or sticks, (4) in response to a novel object (new nestbox, replacement of nestbox), and (5) displacement without any clear goal.
....
Brer Rabbit also loves to dig in nicely turned earth in vegetable patches, but he's easier to spot as he wears a tiny blue jacket with brass buttons and strolls about with a carrot in his paw.
Thanks for comments, the most popular option seems to be 'fox' so I'll go with that, with 'badger' in second.
What about a dog?....why are you all going so exotic with notions of foxes?......dogs have been known to bury things.
errrmmm Wadsworth do you have a dog by any chance?
In my experience, all ladies have holes in their vegetable patches. I see your 12 incher would struggle to fill it!
#end of 'carry on' smuttiness#
The proximate cause is, as you say, likely to be a fox. However, the ultimate cause is almost certainly anthropomorphic global warming. Rather than growing boring old vegetables, were Mrs W to devote her patch to growing biofuels or siting a windmill/generator she wouldn't get any veg (or much electricity generation) but, at your next neighbourhood watch event, she could luxuriate in the self-satisfaction and smugness of her newly burnished green credentials.
EV, we certainly do not have a dog (plus the garden is surrounded by high walls/fences/hedges, teh only animals I've seen are a cat, a fox and the occasional squirrel.
U, that's a good point. Presumably the fox was trying to dig a hole to shelter from the incipient heatwave or something.
Wadsworth
Do you have any enemies who might have sneaked a dog into your garden, instructed it to dig a hole then as soon as dog has completed its mission a quick sharp whistle to the dog from said enemy and hey presto your hole......have you heard any sharp whistles at night from outside your house?
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