Libellula broad bodied darter dragonfly
May 31, 2018Dragonfly nymphs in my wildlife garden pond
November 28, 2018
Think twice before using a strimmer.
This picture shows what terrible damage a strimmer can do to a wild animal. I found this hedgehog in my garden in broad daylight. You can see the damage that has been caused. It was worse than you see here and I first thought that it had lost an eye. I cleaned the wound as well as I could but I could see there were fly eggs inside. I knew this damage was beyond my capabilities and that if the eggs had time to hatch into maggots they would eat the poor thing alive. Fortunately the story has a happy ending. I took it to a specialist vet who operated on it and the hedgehog made a good recovery. This demonstrates just how dangerous our labour saving mechanical devices can be. I hasten to add that I don't use a strimmer myself but I only have a small garden, and I do appreciate people have to use strimmers and sit-on grass cutters when they have large areas to to cut.. Please be mindful of this when next using your machines to cut down that long grass, you're more likely to slice up some poor frogs than a hedgehog but that is just as bad.