Halcyon River

[Polly1958]

I can't under stand why ,on last nights programme , Charlie was actually encouraging otters to live in the garden!He's supposed to care about wildlife,the otters will kill the fish, ducks ,as well as the moorhen it killed last night.
Two otters were released earlier this year not far from where we live,and it's cleaned out every fish pond in the village!The white duck that you can see on my avatar, is one i hand reared from being 2 days old and comes on the garden every day,but he's been missing for nearly a fortnight now.I'm hoping he hasn't been got at too.

[Milvus]

Because they are part of the natural food chain, and still are struggling to exist in Britain. As for them clearing out local ponds, it's much more likely that was done buy herons rearing new chicks, they treat garden ponds like a McDonald's

[Milvus]

That should be by, not buy

[LoftyLottie]

Unfortunately, it's all part and parcel of caring for nature and natural. If we truly love wildlife in our gardens we can't pick and choose what we want and what we dont. We lose a lot of our birds to Sparrowhawks. By encouraging the birds and small mammals by cultivating a wildlife friendly garden we must accept that we are also encouraging their preditors.


I can understand how you feel Polly but, although difficult, we shouldn't humanise the visitors to our garden. I am just as bad. The blackbird with the ragged tail who I had been nurturing all winter and who was feeding from my hand has now been missing for four days.

If we are to enable otters to survive then we have to help them.

They will only survive in gardens where the food is plentiful.