copper123

For weeks on end, Australian nursery owner Humphrey Herington has been racking his brain to identify the elusive thief eating his seedlings. At first he thought it was escaped goats. Then perhaps a pesky possum. The last thing he expected was to walk into work one day and find a "cheeky" koala, dazed and too stuffed to move, surrounded by stripped eucalypt plants. "He looked like he was full. He looked very pleased with himself," Mr Herington told the BBC. Staff are now building a koala-proof fence around their seedling tables to thwart the marsupial - dubbed Claude - whose snacking on several thousands plants has cost the nursery A$6,000 (£3,000; $3,800). Ironically, the plants Claude devoured were being grown to boost koala habitats in the region - the species is endangered. The team at Eastern Forest Nursery, near Lismore in northern New South Wales, had first noticed plants were being chewed a few months ago. "There weren't really any signs - there was no tracks or anything - to indicate what it could have been," Mr Herington said. "It was a mystery." They set a possum trap - to no avail - and even examined animal droppings for clues. But the culprit was only caught when they became a little too greedy. "We came out to work one morning and there he was, sitting there on a pole." "And there were lots of plants missing that morning... I guess that day he must have had a really big feed and was too tired to go back to his tree." With Claude unmasked as the leaf thief, Mr Herington gently wrapped him in a towel and moved him to some trees about 300m (984 feet) from the nursery. "But a couple of days later, he came back and continued with his nightly visits," he said. But Mr Herington isn't mad, he's rather amused. Koalas aren't exactly known for their agility or ingenuity. "I just couldn't believe that it was a koala," he said. "I was shocked but I was also... a little bit impressed." Tinged with that though, is concern. "I've been here for 20-odd years and this hasn't really happened before," Mr Herington said. "Is it that there is a shortage of food?" In 2022, koalas were listed as endangered along most of Australia's east coast, after a dramatic decline in numbers. The once-thriving marsupial has been ravaged by land clearing, bushfires, drought, disease and other threats. In 2021 a NSW inquiry found koalas would be extinct there by 2050 unless there was urgent action. There may be as few as 50,000 of the animals left in the wild, some conservation groups say. koala.webp

Picked up a nice L' entente cordiale medalette by lauer the other day to replace my manky old holed one . This is a nice example with lustre Still looking for the blackpool tower one though

With a deep fried mars bar?

But it sounds good

They could easy have used puts and calls on oil grain etc to make vast sums of money with their insider information - vast sums of money could have been exported and used to help the war , in effect getting the general public to pay for the instability

'Whenever the Kremlin denies something, you should assume it's true' Bill Browder, an American investor and prominent critic of the Kremlin, said he believes that Vladimir Putin was responsible for bringing down the plane that killed Yevgeny Prigozhin. "Whenever the Kremlin denies something, you should assume it’s true," he tells BBC News, saying the Russian government had denied involvement in the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in 2014, the murder of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, and the Salisbury poisoning. "So when they come up with these lies the first thing you should do is look at the opposite," he says. Browder - who has described himself as Putin’s number one enemy - says Prigozhin angered the Russian leader by challenging his power when he launched his short-lived mutiny in June. "[Putin's] a dictator, nobody is allowed to challenge him. The way that he has succeeded in staying in power is by showing everyone that if you do anything that’s a challenge to his power, anything disloyal, that bad things will happen to you. Terrible things will happen to you," he says.

They did have a darn good try in the euros a couple of years ago . I personally think we should pay the england team manager by results , then again if we did we would probably never have a decent aplicant

Not the football pitch ?

I started speaking klingon a year ago and everyone treats me like a bloody alien!

I must admit I really love greggs white coffee it really is superb and the price is fantastic as well. Its a weekness of mine

Many high streets have had their beating hearts ripped out mainly due to covid I am afraid its done the big chains a masive favour and ruined many small cafes et Its even worse in the bigger places like leeds and manchester starbucks and pretts gallore and don't even mention greggs

80 horses would produce one great big pile of poo hope you don't leave it for other mororists to move tut tut

I bit like horses losing their jobs when something better turned up

Even the oldest people are now paying for lots of small purchaces on contactless admittedly its really popular but few places are refusing cash as well I am pretty sure it will take another five years or so for major refusals of cash to become the norm

IN THE MONEY Brits urged to check purses as rare 50p coin sells for £150 after eBay bidding war – here’s how to spot it Tom Duffy Published: 19:14, 30 Jul 2023 Updated: 17:04, 31 Jul 2023 Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) BRITS have been urged to look behind the sofa for spare change after a 50p coin was found to be worth around £148. The special edition coin, released in 2009 to mark 250 years since Kew Gardens opened in 1759, is now worth nearly £150.00. Is it not amazing that journalist just keep on repeating and repeating the same old "News" after 14 years it seams that every newspaper in the uk reminds its readers to look out for these coins every six months (Which by the way dont exist in circulation anymore) Roll on the new info about the undated 20p

He was wrong the smallest coin is the 16th farthing I have two of those

I found a yh Parthing in my collection , its in nice grade too , I thought they all were spelt PARTHING ,shows what I know , I really do need roger's book

they were considered more as small change a bit like a 10p is these days , funny enough theres not a lot you can buy with a 10p

I would say thats about right ,smaller coins like sixpences and shillings tend to circulate less freely and seem to remain in better condition than halfcrowns after 15 years or so, a shilling would prob be in NVF grade

I found a 1942 florin in 1986 or so . I suspect the 1952 halfcrown spent a long time in a piggy bank or forgotten about in a drawer well it would have been in fine or good fine with normal circulation after 15 years

Halfcrowns did circulate quite a lot that coin shows all the signs of being taken out of circulation in about 1960 or so it looks like less that vf but to be sure I would have to have it in hand and i am pretty sure that will never happen LOL

Edward VIII? surely it should be George VI to make it a even slightly believeable forgery

Yes this also contributed to the bubble in modern coins that happened in the early 70'sand late sixties , its easy to look back in old coin monthlies from that time and be horified at the prices ie Mint grade 1959 halfcrown £20 Anyone who paid those prices was well and truely stitched up

bet I know what he said!