Tap Tap TAp

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Evening all,
Well what a nice day both weather wise and gardening wise,
We’ve both been in the garden all day and decided to skip the cooking of a sunday dinner and just have a quick sandwich instead.

It was during the afternoon while i was removing weeds and re-cutting the edge of one of the beds that i heard the Tap Tap Tap of the woodpecker,

Now i thought i’d pass on a bit of info that may both inform and entertain you.

The woodpecker lives on ants and so it’s always attacking any Ant’s nests it can find,
Now the ants have a built in protection “sort of odour sticky release system”
This system works to kill its small pray, ie it’s fine for the small insects and these insects the ants eat "But when it comes to the larger creatures such as woodpeckers the antidote isn’t so good,

After the woodpecker has had it’s fill he takes off and the ants didnt get very far,

But you’ll offten see other birds such as the thrush & crow landing in the ants nesting area and the ants climb all over the unwelcome visitor,

Why?

Why do the likes of the thrush/crow etc let the ants climb all over them spreading this sticky stuff on them?

Well this antidote the ants used to try and kill the woodpecker will kill mites etc and so the thrush/crow & any other birds that need a way of mites in their feathers removing use the ant free mite bath for their own way of getting mite free.

Isn’t nature a wonderful thing!

The weather forcast for this part of france for all of next week until saturday is dry and sunny, Yippeeeeeeeee