Watch out Goat there’s a Wolf behind you!

I promised news of the butterflies we’ve been seeing round about and will put those up soon but had to put up some more trap camera news first! Life is never easy for a shepherd. Its been up to 38°C this last week here and they spend all day out in it. And they’ve got to stay alert enough to ensure that they are actually watching their animals. With the lockdowns some of the goat herds were being looked after by teenagers who had been sent home from school and they were spending perhaps too much time on their phones!?

The local Wolves noticed… so a small number of goats have been excised from the local flocks. One neighbour has lost several – she does have nearly a hundred – but still that’s a blow. The Wolf pictured here in daylight was at this water hole only ten minutes after her herd left! Watch out goats. Another neighbour who lets his few goats roam around by themselves lost a prize specimen last month and of course thought it the Wolves. He asked what I’d been seeing on the trap cameras – of course just Foxes, Badgers, Boar etc I said. But then this week, his prize goat turned up on my trap camera. Unfortunately just as it reached the camera it turned round and fled as if it had seen something scary ahead…

The night time Wolf pictures are also from the spring just two hundred and fifty metres from the house and the Wild Boar family too. They visit daily, often at five-thirty in the morning, but sometimes even mid-morning, fading out from the maquis not long after the goats move on. The Goshawk has been catching the Jays that like the oaks around the spring. Butterflies next, promise!