Peenie Wallie: New animals at the compound

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June 11, 2008

New animals at the compound

Baby Mountain Cottontail

Well, we lost kitty, and I was thoroughly bummed out by this. Today, I decided to mow as it's a fairly mindless exercise and takes my mind off having to tell Jennifer that kitty is no more. While I was mowing, I went by my bluebird house. It had five tiny eggs in it two weeks ago, but the parents had abandoned the nest when I built a blind in front of the bluebird house to get some better shots.

On May 31st, I had checked the bluebird house and discovered 5 little bluebird eggs in a nest, but I hadn't seen the birds since, so I was fairly certain that the eggs were non-starters. Probably they'd make a good omelette, but not much else.

Then, as I was mowing, something came darting out of the bushes, and I jumped off the mower and chased it down on foot. As it turns out, it was a teenie weenie little baby Mountain Cottontail rabbit. I was like..."Oh my god I so have to catch this rabbit. It will make a perfect distraction from the missing kitty".

So, I chased it down on foot. Neither of us could run very far or very fast, but I caught up to the bunny by Jen's little outdoor playhouse and then I sort of shooed him inside of the clubhouse and trapped him there. At least, I thought he was trapped until he squeezed out of a crack about the size of a dime and headed for Mr. MacGregor's garden. I caught him inside the garden with my hands (I was wearing a pair of gloves), but he didn't try to bite me or anything. So, I put him in a cooler with some grass and water while I make some much-needed repairs to the rabbit hutch.

Then, I went back out to mow and when I went by the bluebird house, I saw the mom and dad bluebirds flying continuously from the freshly mowed field to the bluebird house. I was like "oh my god....I bet I've got some baby bluebirds!" I was so excited, so after I finished mowing for the day, I set up in my blind to get some shots of the parents. Finally, when I could stand it no more, I opened the bluebird house to see what was inside and found four teeny weeny naked pink baby bluebirds and one unhatched egg. :)

Four Baby Mountain Bluebirds

Update: I discovered that another bird house has a nest in it full of baby birds. This second nest is a Mountain Chickadees nest and the babies are older (they already have primary feathers on their wings). There are a lot of them in there - at least 5 - possibly more. I'm pretty sure that they're Mountain Chickadees, but Jennifer will have a field day if I'm wrong. She knows the birds up here better than I do and finds great pleasure in correcting me.

More photos in the extended entry.