Snails and Stuff

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 I turned over a kayak that had been sitting in the garden for a week or two to be rewarded with this trio of snails.


There are over 120  species of British snail  and I don't pretend to be anything other than a rank amateur but I am pretty confident that the one on the right is a brown lipped snail and the one on the left is a garden snail. I am open to suggestions on the one in the middle - perhaps another garden snail. Snails are mostly nocturnal and like damp places. These shelled gastropods eat dead and decaying vegetable matter for the most part.

Diary
I set the moth trap last night and caught a mere 6 moths ( large orange underwing). I notice that I do less well when there is a full moon so perhaps that accounts for it rather than it being the end of the season. The fruit of the blackthorn bushes along the hedgerows is ripening. These sloes are eaten by birds but are too bitter for human taste. Some people collect them and steep them in gin to produce "sloe gin" to be ready to drink at Christmas.








 My camera traps last night produced a roe deer and something that is either a polecat or a ferret. A ferret is a domesticated polecat and telling them apart in the field is a problem - particularly as they interbreed and you can get confusing crosses between the two. I am showing a link to an article and you can make up your own mind!

polecat /ferret differences.



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