Category Archives: Videos

An Extreme Form of Gardening

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If you want to make a huge difference to countless millions of lives, you absolutely can.

All you have to do is create a wildlife pond. It doesn’t have to be big. A micro pond in a bucket can mean the world to tiny lives looking for a place to do their thing.

A wildlife pond doesn’t have to take much money. It does take a whole lot of time but that’s mostly because you’ll be spending hours upon hours marveling at your creation.

The amount of joy you’ll get in return is tremendous. If you’re not careful, you’ll also get backache – but if you do, you’ll know it was totally worth it.

Ponds are like fingerprints – each one is unique. Mine is a young retention pond on a sunny terrace. And it is prone to drama, as it befits a fledgling body of water. At the filming of this video, I was dealing with a charming but unruly guest who’s overstayed its welcome, for more than one reason. I can still hear the delicious crunch it makes when you rip it from the pond bottom. Good times!  

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Ribniki so kot prstni odtisi – vsak je drugačen!

Skupno jim je to, da v njih najdejo zatočišče premnoga drobna življenjca, ki se najraje kar sama povabijo. Pa tudi kakšno malce večje se najde med njimi.

In potem tam živijo, se lovijo in množijo, za obilo presenečenj poskrbijo in skrbnega opazovalca marsičesa naučijo. Lastniki v ribnikih najdemo srečo, pa tudi precej dela. V ribniku in okolici se zmeraj kaj dogaja 😅

The friend who fell from the skies

Animals, English language posts, European Hornet, Insectlife, Insects, Life in Slovenia, Neanderslavia, Slovenia, Videos, Vojnik, Wetlands, Zhuzhana the Hornet, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

One fateful Saturday, a pair of sky warriors crashed to the ground, locked in battle.

They say every fight you can walk away from is a good fight. I guess that means our new friend had a good one indeed.

Her opponent, however, flew off. Because this is what victorious hornets do, after successfully shredding their rival’s wings.

So there she was – bruised and battered and suddenly pedestrian.

Under any ordinary circumstances, this would have meant she would be torn apart, limb by limb, by an army of gleeful ants. Unless she were lucky and a hungry bird got to her first.

But these were no ordinary circumstances. Because the turf on which she landed was ours.

She may have lost the duel but she won our love, along with a life-time supply of sugar water.

Zhuzhana, as we named her, was born a worker. But she ended up living like a queen.

#hornet #europeanhornet #Vespacrabro #pethornet #rescuedhornet #injuredhornet #rescue #feedinghornet #handfeeding #insectfeeding #insectrescue #insectlife #petinsect #zhuzhana #srsen #wetlands #vojnik #slovenia #neanderslavia

The Snail

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  • Garden snails are native to the Mediterranean
  • But they’ve travelled as far as California and Australia
  • (People being followed by snails is a real thing.)
  • Growing snails on purpose is called heliciculture
  • Growing them by accident is called good biodiversity
  • If snails threaten your garden, make it firefly-friendly
  • Because fireflies eat snails and slugs
  • So do frogs, lizards and birds
  • Or you can eat the snails yourself
  • They’re a good source of protein – and parasitic worms
  • I prefer biodiversity to gastronomy, but you do you

Catch of the day: an elderly snail

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When two garden snails really like each other, they show it by mutual stabbing. They’re equipped with special love darts for this very purpose – they’re hermaphrodites and their love dueling, which goes on for hours, is how they exchange seed.
Throughout history, garden snails have loved hitching a ride with humans and this is how they’ve managed to reach some of the farthest corners of the Earth. They’re cute in their own right but their appetite can spell disaster for crops in areas where their natural predators are scarce. Good biodiversity is your friend – frogs, birds, lizards and many bugs will happily keep snails in check for you.
But if all else fails, you can always scare garden snails away with coffee grounds – they seriously dislike coffee. That’s probably for the best because the idea of fast-moving, twitchy snails is borderline disturbing.

A baby beetle

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On this earth, there are 300 pounds of insects for every pound of human flesh. They fly, they dig, they swim, they bite and sting and spray. And they can make more babies in their lifetime than the whole of humanity ever has. We’re outmaneuvered, outgunned, outnumbered and sometimes outsmarted too. Just something to keep in mind 🙂

Possibly, nah definitely a leech

Animals, English language posts, Life in Slovenia, Natural ponds, Ponding, Slovenia, Videos, Vojnik, Wetlands, , , , ,

One of the best things about creating a wildlife pond is watching new critters move in. This spry little slinkie – unfairly known, as I’ve learned, as the horse leech – has managed to find my magic little lake. And quite possibly, my new friend is exactly what these waters needed… because right now, they’re ruled by voracious dragonfly larvae who could use a good old-fashioned fear of God put into them… Dragonflies can murder their way through a sizeable batch of tadpoles in a disturbingly short time – a relatively well-known fact in the ponding world. But they will also actively stalk small fish, which is much less known about them. Supposedly, horse leeches hunt dragonfly larvae, so maybe nature will balance itself out.

Metal Day Vojnik

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(I found a way to combine my love of charity and garbage. We Slovenians are weird like that.)

Če človek sam zbira odpadne kovine, ga prehitro vse mine! Tudi jaz sem se vdala, preden sem dovolj pločevink nabrala, da bi jih z dobičkom na odpad peljala. Če pa se zbiranja lotimo vsi, zlahka v zlato pretopimo smeti! Dober teden smo si dali, da bomo kovinske odpadke ločevali, kaj dlje bi s kupom praznih konzerv le stežka zdržali. Kovinske pokrovčke, konzerve, žice, tudi kak star plug – vse to bomo zbrali ter 23. septembra na kup pripeljali. Nato se bomo vsi skupaj veselili, saj se ne bomo le navlake znebili, ampak tudi mnogo dobrega storili! Izkupiček bomo namreč za šport in duševno zdravje otrok namenili, pa še okolje bomo lepše za sabo pustili!

Drži ali ne drži?

“Metal dej, povej naprej! Za šport, okolje in zdravje gre zdej!”

Spremljaj nas na facebook.com/metaldayvojnik

Kako pa ti zbiraš kovinske odpadke? Objavi foto ali video pod ključnikom #metaldayvojnik

Music “Power of Darq Ice” by  @DarqIce