Just witnessed nature at its worst!

[Glitterandrainbows]

Reminds me of the time a fix went after my pug having his night time wee I don’t know how it got in the garden I thought he’s been a whole lot thing was running for his life fox was in the garden for ages and wouldn’t leave freaked me out

 

[Lady Jane]

A few years ago, one of the cats caught a baby rabbit and was bringing it home across the field. The poor thing was still very much alive and wriggling, and the cat dropped it. As it ran off, 2 black backed gulls swooped down, and both got hold of the baby, ripping it apart as they flew up. The scream lives still in my memory.

Horrendous

 

[Caol Ila]

My brother's story might win. He was staying at a lodge in Zimbabwe, in one of the national parks, and the wee bungalows were on stilts above the ground. He was woken up in the middle of the night by something banging into the stilts. He looked out and saw a kudu (a very large antelope, bigger than most horses) running for its life, chased by a pack of hyenas. The kudu's horn had struck the bungalow. Brother watched the kudu race around, the hyenas hot on its heels, and thought, Africa is cool. You rarely see hunts.

Early in the morning, he wandered into the lodge's restaurant for a cup of coffee. This place did not have doors. When he walked in, he saw that it was covered in blood, every inch of it, the floors, the tables, the chairs, the walls, and there was a fairly dismembered kudu lying on the floor. One of the staff members told brother that they'd walked in to start their shift and found the hyenas munching on the kudu. One staff member may have even seen the kill - can't remember if brother said they did. Everyone was very surprised to see one another, and the hyenas legged it. The kudu must have run into the restaurant, then found itself trapped, and the hyenas took it down.

The staff cleaned the blood, took some kudu meat for themselves, and moved the rest of it some distance from the lodge.

 

[Poingsettia]

A few years ago I was walking in Dundee city centre, and heard a right commotion. A very large gull had attacked a group of pigeons, caught one and was proceeding to pull it to bits.

 

[Blanche]

Reminds me of the time a fix went after my pug having his night time wee I don’t know how it got in the garden I thought he’s been a whole lot thing was running for his life fox was in the garden for ages and wouldn’t leave freaked me out

I had similar with a terrier years ago. We had gone into the garden for an early morning wee( the dogs not me!) and we were all still half asleep. Suddenly there was a fox running towards us. It picked up the terrier, threw its head back and slammed the terrier into the ground. The poor terrier had been mid pee with his back to the fox so had no idea what was happening. The other dogs and I ran at the fox and it disappeared. It turns out it had been sleeping on the compost heap round the corner in the L shaped garden so we must have woken it up.

 

[Birker2020]

I have just been down the yard to sort out the herdlet. I was walking my mare in and suddenly a huge shadow flew over us, she panicked and went up in the air and went to gallop off. Remembering that 2 years ago trying to hang on in a similar gateway scenario knocked me clean out and has cost me my mobility and not a great chance of riding again, I am ashamed to say I just threw the rope over her back and let her go. My bad! ?

Anyway, I digress. In the meantime above my head in a huge old beech tree, it sounded like the banshee herself had come for me. I saw the very large (not even sure what it was to be honest) bird of prey swoop down to the ground with a small bird in its claws. It was clawing and pecking away at it, the poor little bird was screeching in terror as it was being torn apart. ? I rushed at it and stamped my foot (I know useless thing to try and do anything to stop nature from doing its thing) but it flew straight off with the poor little bird flapping and screeching.

The two donkeys just stood and watched this all totally unphased, it took me 20 minutes to calm Dolly down enough to catch her and bring her in, snorting and rolling her eyes like the damn bird had tried to take off with her, not the poor little birdie. I think I am getting soft I found it very distressing and it shook me a bit, I would never normally find anything like this that distressing. I wonder is it an indicator of my fragile emotional well being this past few weeks?

Sorry pretty pointless post, but I love living in such an isolated area and very close up with nature and not the first kill I have witnessed but all a bit too close for my liking today!

Gosh that sounds awfully upsetting, I don't blame you chucking the rope away either. I tend not to hang on these days, life is too precious and I've seen and heard of too many people seriously hurt by terror stricken horses. Hope you feeling better today.

 

[rextherobber]

I'm trying to prevent Greater Spotted Woodpeckers from raiding the Swallow nest, and there also seems to be a rogue Swallow trying to have a go at them too. Googled it and found this:
"Unmated male barn swallows will kill and eat other baby birds in order to split up the resident pair of adults in order to attract and mate with the female."
Who knew?!

 

[scats]

I spend a lot of my time rescuing poor baby mice from my yard cat, who insists in playing with them before she kills them. I wouldn’t mind if she’d just kill them quickly, but the screams from the poor little things are awful.

She got a baby robin a couple of weeks ago, I tried to save it but it was too late. The poor mum was watching. Thankfully she had another fledgling on the ground in the barn so we made sure the cat was locked out of there for a week until the baby was flying.

 

[Glitterandrainbows]

@Blanche so lucky you was there! I’ve never heard of a fox going for anyone else’s dog I thought been a pug maybe fox mistakenly thought he was a piglet ? I loved foxes before the incident now I am not keen!

 

[Blanche]

@Blanche so lucky you was there! I’ve never heard of a fox going for anyone else’s dog I thought been a pug maybe fox mistakenly thought he was a piglet ? I loved foxes before the incident now I am not keen!

Yes I’m glad I was there, goodness knows what would have happened otherwise. He was a short terrier with Queen Anne legs but a very long body. I always use to say he was a lwb with low profile tyres and dodgy tracking. He was quite hefty at 10 kilos which was all muscle so he may have had a fighting chance if I hadn’t been there.

 

[Errin Paddywack]

Foxes are carnivores, they will hunt anything small enough, or incapacitated like a cast pregnant sheep. In the case of the sheep they will target the udder and make a meal of it. I never saw one but we did lose a couple of sheep that way. Also when we were farming my husband saw his favourite cat, a very pale almost rabbit coloured, tabby coming back up the field and looking nervously over her shoulder. A fox was stalking her. My husband scared it off. That cat was a formidable hunter herself but outclassed and outsized by a fox.

 

[AShetlandBitMeOnce]

You don't love the predator who's just trying to get some breakfast then?

This is the thing, when I am watching a nature documentary and feel a bit sad or stressed if there's a chase, say a lion had caught a baby buffalo, I always take a second to remind myself that if the documentary was about the lion trying to get food to feed it's cute wee cubs, and not about the buffalo and it's mum, then I would be pleased they had made a kill... It's all about balance

 

[Britestar]

Reminds of of diving in the Red Sea. Innocently going around a reef, big black fish shoots across, and eats small black fish in front of me! Its a jungle out there.

 

[Xmasha]

Foxes are carnivores, they will hunt anything small enough, or incapacitated like a cast pregnant sheep. In the case of the sheep they will target the udder and make a meal of it. I never saw one but we did lose a couple of sheep that way. Also when we were farming my husband saw his favourite cat, a very pale almost rabbit coloured, tabby coming back up the field and looking nervously over her shoulder. A fox was stalking her. My husband scared it off. That cat was a formidable hunter herself but outclassed and outsized by a fox.

that make me shudder. A few years ago we found what was left of one of our cats. He had been torn to pieces. We assumed a fox back then. I will never forget that sight.

Mrsjingle , hope you are ok today. If it helps it never used to bother me either, but now i hate seeing the big birds pick on the little ones. We have several nests in one of the barns and this horrid Magpie keeps swooping in. Its already demolished 2 nests outside and killed all the babies. ( i found them on the floor)

 

[tristar]

glad your are ok mrs J

we have a buzzard, think its after the hare

 

[exracehorse]

We have had buzzards take young chickens. As they are free rein. One mum lost 7 in one day. But the day I’ll never forget is when a rat had killed the mummy hens two week old chicks who were in a secure wire run. The rat had killed four. Pulled them through the gap in the bottom of the run which was very small. And as the chicks had got stuck.. had then eaten the heads. So I found them half in and half out with their bodies in pieces.

 

[Horseysheepy]

Foxes are carnivores, they will hunt anything small enough, or incapacitated like a cast pregnant sheep. In the case of the sheep they will target the udder and make a meal of it. I never saw one but we did lose a couple of sheep that way. Also when we were farming my husband saw his favourite cat, a very pale almost rabbit coloured, tabby coming back up the field and looking nervously over her shoulder. A fox was stalking her. My husband scared it off. That cat was a formidable hunter herself but outclassed and outsized by a fox.

I'd never have thought that would happen to a cast ewe, that's made me feel quite icky. How awful.
I remember we had a cast ewe that had literally built a deep slippery trench around her trying to get up, she'd have been an easy target.
I remember when I worked at a diary farm, as soon as i turned my back on the penned calves happily snoozing, the jackdaws would all flock in and just perch in a line as if to see what they could target. We get them at lambing time too, perching on the individual pens, just watching for that opportunity. Makes me shudder.

 

[Regandal]

My father was a shepherd, he had a real hatred for crows. Dispatched quite a few.

 

[Moobli]

You have to admire their jaw strength in that situation.

I took a fascinating (but gruesome) video of a stoat killing a rabbit that was three times it’s size. I’m very rural where I live so life and death in nature (and farming) are a regular occurrence but I’d never managed to get this it on film until that time. I won’t post it though as it is quite distressing.

 

[TwyfordM]

We have some huge birds of prey near the yard, had one swoop down literally over my head and you regularly find the mess after they’ve killed something. Seeing them sooo close I don’t know how they didn’t make the bird-dinosaur connection sooner ??

 

[ILuvCowparsely]

I have just been down the yard to sort out the herdlet. I was walking my mare in and suddenly a huge shadow flew over us, she panicked and went up in the air and went to gallop off. Remembering that 2 years ago trying to hang on in a similar gateway scenario knocked me clean out and has cost me my mobility and not a great chance of riding again, I am ashamed to say I just threw the rope over her back and let her go. My bad! ?

Anyway, I digress. In the meantime above my head in a huge old beech tree, it sounded like the banshee herself had come for me. I saw the very large (not even sure what it was to be honest) bird of prey swoop down to the ground with a small bird in its claws. It was clawing and pecking away at it, the poor little bird was screeching in terror as it was being torn apart. ? I rushed at it and stamped my foot (I know useless thing to try and do anything to stop nature from doing its thing) but it flew straight off with the poor little bird flapping and screeching.

The two donkeys just stood and watched this all totally unphased, it took me 20 minutes to calm Dolly down enough to catch her and bring her in, snorting and rolling her eyes like the damn bird had tried to take off with her, not the poor little birdie. I think I am getting soft I found it very distressing and it shook me a bit, I would never normally find anything like this that distressing. I wonder is it an indicator of my fragile emotional well being this past few weeks?

Sorry pretty pointless post, but I love living in such an isolated area and very close up with nature and not the first kill I have witnessed but all a bit too close for my liking today!

How horrid for the wee birdy and you and your mare.
We had last year, when I went into the barn to get late night haylage for ponio, feathers all over the floor, the damn sparrow hawk and flown into the barn and devoured all the swallows. He was in there trying to get the final baby and the baby flew into a horse rug and stayed there in the folds. We chance the hawk round and round with sticks and brooms and finally got rid of it. Poor birdies, but the little one survived as he was in the rug.

 

[Bernster]

Oh lawks as if this thread wasn’t sad enough, now I’m worried for our cat! She’s outside a lot, and OH won’t let her use the cat flap to avoid bringing mice in, and there are foxes in our garden. Saw a big one yesterday right near her. ?

 

[Gloi]

I took a fascinating (but gruesome) video of a stoat killing a rabbit that was three times it’s size. I’m very rural where I live so life and death in nature (and farming) are a regular occurrence but I’d never managed to get this it on film until that time. I won’t post it though as it is quite distressing.

I've seen videos online of stoats and rabbits. We seem to have weasels here more than stoats and they are so tiny but so determined. Amazing the size of animal they can kill, but anything will die if it gets its jugular vein chewed through. I'm locking the doors tonight.