Nocturnal and diurnal wanderers

The front garden is taking quite a beating from the local wildlife! Not only do we have the porcupines to contend with as they dig shallow holes everywhere in the grass, rooting out the onion weeds and pockmarking the surface enough to turn your ankle, but now the throwing mole or mole rat has returned after an absence of many years. These destructive and, I understand, verminous diggers can throw enough soil out with their volcano-like mounds to completely remove what you thought was under the grass, and you can put  your foot down their burrows with no difficulty. The last one was chased off by putting some kind of silver ball down the hole and stuffing newspaper in before the fumes start to spread. So far there are four mounds, and time will tell which direction they are going in - hopefully down the road and not closer to the house.

The guineafowl and francolins also wreak havoc as they scratch among the plants and create dust bowls faster than a drought can kill the grass.  I try to contain the damage by putting down mixed grain in the middle of the gravel driveway, but on a hot day they just love a dust bath.

Without wanting to speak too soon and court disaster, it seems that putting out a bowl of water for the porcupines has solved the problem of them digging under the fence to bite through the irrigation system, and the new neighbour has plugged the tunnels that were dug to gain access to my place, which has also helped. They have also taken a fancy to the bird seed in the driveway which might make a good study for someone's thesis!

We haven't seen a baboon for months, largely due, I would suspect, to the seemingly unstoppable culling by the so-called baboon managers. If killing them is managing them, I can think of better candidates for the chop rather than ridding us of the raiders who really keep us on our toes with regard to security in the home. If it's baboon-proof, it's probably burglar-proof.

I still miss my tortoises, which escaped during the great porcupine raids of last year, but I never really liked to restrict them to a life in captivity. I only hope they have not ended up in someone else's garden after their dash for freedom!