Quote:
Originally Posted by mobertol
2nd lot of pics from yesterday's walk. As to the Camelia /Magnolia -I don't know -asked the old lady in the garden when we were chatting and she said a Camelia!
The canal is having the banks reinforced at the moment because they are being eroded away by the work of a creature called a Nutria (bit like a little beaver!) they are a real pest over here and cause lot of damage -there's a photo of a family of them on the banks of the canal and one of them in the water!
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Well today's number 3 is definitely a Magnolia stellata - a shrub/tree I have always wanted.
As for the little pests - nutria is another name for the coypu which caused a lot of problems in Norfolk and thereabouts, having been imported and farmed when fur coats were all the rage.
Many escaped and damaged the drainage works, and a concerted programme by
MAFF eradicated them by 1989. However, in 2012 a 'giant rat' was killed in
County Durham, with authorities suspecting that the animal was, in fact, a coypu.
You could try eating them:
Coypu meat is lean and low in
cholesterol. While there have been many attempts to establish markets for coypu meat, all documented cases have generally been unsuccessful.