All the Critters

With my disappointment in humanity still very much present I thought it was best to focus myself on animals today. Here are most of the visitors we had throughout the years in our garden, some were too fast to take a picture of. Above is the Eurasian Hoopoe which only visited once.

This huge and amazing moth was also a one time wonder for us, Oleander hawk-moth (Daphnis nerii) is more native in parts of Africa.

A praying mantis on our sewing machine :)

A snake right next to my bedroom window.

A very odd and big caterpillar, what a beauty :)

We've had several chameleons, they are so intriguing.

Sometimes a grasshopper hops inside :)

And in the Summer we often have turtles in front of our door which are treated with water and fresh lettuce or cucumbers, these guys eat very noisily and greedy :)
We also get huge wild swines in our street which is right below the mountain, I will try to take pictures next Summer, they are enormous and only come out after dark.

We have lots of bird visitors especially this year after I set up a bird bath, they love it!

The birds leave pretty feathers, for us to use :)

All the beautiful creatures

Our dogs are all softies, everybody's friends. If a burglar were to come, they would ask him in for coffee.
But when an animal of an other species happens to enter the yard, they all of a sudden remember that they are hunters, and merciless.

We were in the middle of a photo shooting, Estella in frills and make-up for once, when there was a big conmotion and we arrived just in time to save this chameleon. Believe me, it is not easy to divert a pack of twelve dogs intent in killing.

Isn't a beautiful creature? Taken up with gardening gloves, because they are a bit earie to touch, he was brought to safety. They become black when they are frightened, but this one was lucky :)

Another Family Member

As you all might know by now, we have 14 dogs (used to be 15 but we found a very good home for one). It used to be hell to get out of the house, the garden door was directly connected to the street so when a dog escaped it was quite a hassle to get him/ her back. After a while we had made a second wall and door and now even if they do try to go (pure out of curiousity) they end up between the two doors.


So why I'm telling you all this? We have a new family member since several months: a Chameleon lives between those two doors, it is a safe and quiet place and has some nice plants and a place to hide for the rain, you can see him on the right side if you look closely.

He didn't like me taking pictures tho, I got some bad looks :)

Nature's Law

Sometimes a chameleon visits our garden. They are amazing animals, truly prehistoric in appearance.

This one, as you can see has turned black in terror. One of the dogs caught it and inflicted a deadly wound before Estella could rescue it. It won't last long. So sad...