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June 18, 2010
Bluebird Trail - 6/18/10
Last night, Timmy caught a mouse and I took the mouse and put it into an empty 40 gallon aquarium with a lid so he was safe for the night. Then, Timmy woke us up again making a terrible racket. It was about 4:00 in the morning. Pitch black outside. Timmy chasing something like mad through the house. I reluctantly got up, expecting to find him after another mouse. Instead, he was chasing our female mountain bluebird through the house. I caught her and released her outside. She seemed fine, but was confused by the light on the front patio and kept returning to it like a moth to a flame. So I turned of the light and then released her again and she flew away.
I wasn't sure what to do, so we scolded Timmy good and went back to sleep. In the morning, we found that the top was off of the bluebird house and the babies were all gone. Later, we saw the neighbor's cat slinking away from the nest with a very guilty look on her face, like a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar.
Our best guess is that the neighbor's cat killed and ate the babies. The mom somehow got inside our house and was flying around. Possibly she was distraught and Timmy caught her. Possibly Timmy was the sole culprit. It's hard to know.
We'll move the box onto a post and put tin around it so that cat's can't get into it so easily. We've seen mom today, and she looks fine. No sign of dad. It's a sad day for the bluebirds.
Posted by Rob Kiser on June 18, 2010 at 7:21 PM
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