In 1988, when I was 15, a female house sparrow began to appear every time I went into the garden via the back door. She’d land a couple of fence panels away and then bounce towards me with her head cocked to one side. I’d pop back in the house and crumble a biscuit or some bread and throw it the bird. She seemed happy with this arrangement and it continued throughout the summer. One morning, she actually took some bread from my hand. I named her Freda. I don’t know why!

Then one day, she didn’t appear on the fence and I never saw her again.
I was really sad at the time 🙁

Has anyone else had a similar experience?

I befriended an earthworm (Spud)
Every time it rained he came in to the house for some shelter .

It was all great until the fishing trip.

🙂

Do redheads count?

The one i’m thinking of matches the rest of the description. 😳 😀

Do sheep count?

A feral cat has moved in with us. It brings us daily gifts. Rabbit season is a nightmare.

A germ befriended me on a train to trip to Londan last October. We were together until Christmas when he eventually died from alcohol poisoning.

“Wild? I was positively livid!”

“Wild? I was positively livid!”

Flange 🙂

When we were kids, a mate nursed an injured jackdoor back to health. It could mimic a few words and liked sitting on our shoulders. He let it go once it was healthy, but it just stayed around, flying into open windows on both of our houses. It was named Garfield.

Eventually Garfield got too friendly and tried landing on the shoulders of everyone at school, which was only about 100m away from my house, and after compliants from parents, Garfield suddenly disappeared one day. 🙁

when i was a student, a neighbourhood cat would walk along the street with me if it saw me. I used to call it Wookie, as it was a small furry fattie.

It’d come into the house and sit infront of the fridge for hours. Good cat.

My dad has a squirrel that come and knocks on his patio door when it wants food.

He also has a regular fox that he puts out food for, who disappeared for a while then returned with her cubs 😀

(He doesn’t live in some county idyl by the way – this is central Bishopbriggs!)

At the family home in India a green parrot appeared with an injured wing. He stayed for 2 years, started talking in Hindi and would sit next to you at dinner time asking for food. He had a little cage that he would wander into every night and ask to shut the door! Then one day he just flew off, never to be seen again.
My uncle had a massive cobra that would come out of the jungle for milk every day.

Yak >> Do sheep count?

In communist Mongolia sheep count you to fall asleep.

one of our cats was wild when she was found but she was only a couple of months old. She’s not wild anymore though, well only a little bit.

We back onto some woods, and we have wild boar. I noticed a female playing with young and tried to get a bit closer to them with my camera.
Turns out she walked right up to me and shooed off her young into the undergrowth.
I just kept talking gently, looking away from her and squatted on the floor. She made a scrape in the earth and lay 10ft away. Gorillas in the mist thing going on. 🙂

Do redheads count?

The one i’m thinking of matches the rest of the description.

Oh, so you’ve met her too……………..

I married one, and yes, it is the same colour as an orangy tang…

we have a tame Robin most years, we get through so many boxes of meal worms.

Is it true that redheads smell foxy?

F me duntstick.

Rather you than me. Wild Boar is blooming tasty….but they can be proper ard barstewards….especially with young.

*Obvious joke about a beaver*

I was working on my motorbike in the garden of my old flat not far the River Trent in Nottingham.

A furry thing ran under the bike, and I thought it was a cat so put my hand out to stroke it.

Turns out it was an otter, which then jumped up on my lap and sat there sniffing me for a few minutes while I cautiously stroked it. It then wandered around the garden for 10 minutes then left.

I did wonder if it was a beaver, as I was very young and naive at the time.

When I was a kid one of the neighbours stole ‘befriended’ a super cute wild goat kid from the forest behind the house, kinda like this

Before too long it looked like this and wasn’t very friendly at all

We’ve got a gigantic fat bastard of a woodpigeon that I think exists solely on our benefit handouts, every time you go to fill the birdfeeder it flies down and lands beside you, then looks up disapprovingly til you drop some seed (it’s too fat to get to the feeder, it used to wait for smaller birds to knock some loose, then it figured out we usually dropped some when we filled it, now it makes demands). We call him Fat Pigeon.

that I think exists solely on our benefit handouts

You’re not doing him any favours. You should re-asses his needs, find him fit for work and send him back out to forage. This left wing, touchy feely nonsense is just giving him an incentive to lounge around all day sponging off the state whilst the hard working honest woodpigeons slave away finding their own food.

This is hard for me… I thought he wanted.. you know.. wanted… to be… my friend… flew into my garage… we (well, I) talked. Told him all my problems… I really thought there was a bond.
But… once he had warmed himself, feathers had dried… he hopped out the door and was gone. Gone forever.
Maybe he’s been back. But I’ve moved. 😥

You’re not doing him any favours. You should re-asses his needs, find him fit for work and send him back out to forage. This left wing, touchy feely nonsense is just giving him an incentive to lounge around all day sponging off the state whilst the hard working honest woodpigeons slave away finding their own food. You should, in the words of The ‘Nuge, KILL IT AND GRILL IT!

used to have a squirrel that would wait for us to come home. She would come in the front door with us and then go to the nut tub in the living room, unscrew the loosely fitted lid and then wait by the patio door to be let out. If we were outside with the door open she would come in and help herself and would come take nuts out of your hand.

This went on for a couple of years and she had plenty of little squirrels.

One day we came home and there was a squashed squirrel in the road. We never saw her again 🙁

there’s a robin who likes to hop around the edge of our garden when you’re there and see if you’ve disturbed any insects. I inadvertently blasted him with the hose the other week and he’s not been back since 🙁 maybe I need to get some mealworms.

We call him Fat Pigeon.

We have a pigeon called Fat Pigeon too! That old boy, when he kicks off from next door’s TV aerial, it’s twanging backwards and forwards for five minutes afterwards. It’s amazing he doesn’t just snap it off.

Squirrels in our garden get shot on sight.

We do have a fairly tame cock pheasant though, we were going to have a walked up shoot on the farm before the end of the season, but didn’t in the end, partly, I think because we were all worried about shooting him!

Me and the local muntjac. Bit of a daily thing but he only wants me for the food…

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJUKujE1ZFc[/video]

Mum’s neighbour runs a hedgehog hospital, I grew up helping out, nursing hogs, sometimes badgers and foxes too. When I moved out I would reguarly take hogs over winter and release them on to the nature reserve I lived on. Sometimes we’d have a dozen or more in the shed – looking after my bikes bless them.

One year I had a youngster who must have had a little grey matter missing. She was found roaming around in the day time walking in circles, only wieghing 150g or so. After treating her and trying to fatten her up, we noticed she craved human contact and was only active during the day, there was no way we could let her go back to the wild so we had to keep her. Bless her, she’d curl up on my lap and sleep – she’d snore which was flipping hilarious! I’d hand feed her, she’d quite happily have a tickle, would run from her hutch when I got home from work to greet me. She’d sometimes try and curl up with the dogs but for obvious reasons she wasn’t that welcome! I loved that thing and was pretty upset when she died.

Place I used to work was on the edge of the industrial estate and backed onto open fields, with a small stretch of grass and a hedge the other side of our car park fence, so used to see all sorts of wildlife, like snipe, hares, sparrrowhawks, pheasants, etc.
We started putting bird seed out, which got several pheasants coming regularly, including one spectacular blue-green bird.
I’d get in a bit early to give the studio a once-over, and put the seed out, and one cock pheasant started to recognise my car coming in, and would fly up onto the fence and wait for me, so I’d put seed along the top rail and on the post, and he’d sit there and let me get up close, so I tried holding out seed in my hand; I was stunned when he happily took seed from me! Went on for ages, then he just disappeared, so I guess the inevitable happened. It was great while it lasted, having a wild creature give you it’s trust.

A little mouse lived in our shed once. It made a home in my dad’s Carradice saddle bag, as it happens. Used to go out and leave bits of cheese for the little fella (I have no idea if cheese is actually good for mice…) and a bit of water. Then one day it just wasn’t there any more.

We had a wild mouse in a cupboard the other day. Turns out that Nutella works well on a trap.

Used to have a wren in one of my old workshops that would keep me company – it was an old stone barn and quite cluttered and cobwebby. He’d perch nearby when I was working and any time I moved any furniture or materials he’d come and join me to see if I’d disturbed and spiders or insects he could eat. Used to call him Little Ronnie No-Neck, which caused a bit of a situation when my GF at the time decided to start collecting all the flies from the office insect-o-cuter in envelopes and post them to him….. or rather, to inadvertently post them to my next-door neighbour and landlord, called Ron.

Have swallows (seasonally) at my current workshop – the door has two cat flap sized cutouts in it – one at the bottom for chickens to come and go and one at the top for swallows

In the house, spiders generally get shown the door (then hitch a lift back in with the firewood) but Cellar Spiders are very welcome and we’ve watched several generations grow up in the house over the last few years – the young ones are so gossamer delicate that you can barely see them. Almost invisible spiders floating in completely invisible webs. In contrast, in the shed with the bikes theres another spider so big we call him Mr Cloverfield

We have racoons in the garden every night (BC) but you can’t feed them as they’re without doubt the smartest 4 legged animal I’ve ever seen and will be cashing your paycheck within days. We did put a couple of eggs out for them once as I didn’t believe the wife. Turns out you put a bowl of water out too and they crack the top of the egg without spilling a drop, sit upright and drink it with their two front paws and then they wash their paws in the bowl of water afterwards. Bloody ridiculous!

If I had the time I would do a documentary on the ones in the local park who walk from feeding spot to feeding spot, single file, and use the zebra crossings when they cross the single lane roads!