Motorbikes and the Dordogne

About the wildlife

We live on the south side of a hill, in 14000 square meters of woodland. Most of the trees are oak, but there is some fir and some hazel. There is loads of wildlife here, wild boar, foxes, deer, squirrels and more. There are also snakes, not many but we have found during the last week a four foot grassnake, which we re-located half a mile away, and an adder which needed no re-location as we had driven over it in the car, accidents do happen!
I was on the balcony today watching the red squirrel pinching all the hazelnuts off the trees. There are no gray squirrels here at all. The wild boar eat the apples off our tree without even asking, probably lucky that the fig tree is too tall for them, do boar eat figs?
There are also loads of lizards, during the past month there seem to be many very small ones, one inch long rather than the normal 4 or 5 inches, so I assume that they have been breeding. Some of the little ones are getting quite friendly and can be handled. It is quite amusing to see them running when they catch a worm or a small fly.
Jude has a small room built into the rock at the side of the house which she calls her potting shed, I tend to avoid this room as we have found snake skins there and I know that the bat also roosts in there. It is not that I mind bats, but snakes are another thing.
The locals here tend to hunt deer and boar on sundays, but they should only hunt on common land and have no right to come onto private land. Although I respect their traditions, I do not want people with guns roaming around our place, so have put up signs to tell them that this is private. I spent 23 years of my life in the RAF and have had enough of guns.

posted by madman @ 2:36 pm