Great tits, shame about the ...
stray cat strut. (Apologies for schoolboy humour).
June 18:
I didn't want to get emotionally involved. But now I am. We have a nest of great tits in the back garden. Well, hopefully we still do. I woke this morning with shrieks coming from the garden. My wife was hopping around in distress, "the birds, the birds". The bird box, given to all children at elementary school out here in the Japanese countryside, lay partly split in the dirt. On the ground were about five baby great tits and the ants were starting to tuck in. My wife flicked as many ants off as possible, and thrust the living birds back into the box. The one dead baby I buried under the rose bush. The parent (mother presumably) has been in there a long time, presumably feasting frenziedly on ants.
Prime suspect is a stray tabby that struts (while baby birds fret) his hour upon our stage. I fear we haven't heard the last of him.
June 22:
Surviving baby great tits doing fine, as far as we can tell. Parents flying in and out of bird box with tasty morsels every day. We are on full moggy watch.
June 26:
Cats are very agile! Commotion in our house as large white feline caught three quarters of its way up the bird house pole. Wife shrieks and makes a bolt for the door. Daughters make violent shooshing noises. I throw something large and heavy in the vicinity and the cat slinks away (with serious attitude mind you, and a look akin to giving me the middle finger) to wait for another day.
Survival of the fittest. Where do our loyalties lie? Not as simple as it might at first seem.
Our family were up in arms when a neighbour, Old man Sato, tried to get rid of the young stray cats in the neighbourhood with a long pole, caveman grunts, and brute force. Now those same stray cats face our wrath, and missiles, simply for doing what they are hard-wired to do.
Darwinism in the back garden. Hoping fervently that the young great tits fly the nest soon. Judging by the size of their food parcels today it can't be long.
June 18:
I didn't want to get emotionally involved. But now I am. We have a nest of great tits in the back garden. Well, hopefully we still do. I woke this morning with shrieks coming from the garden. My wife was hopping around in distress, "the birds, the birds". The bird box, given to all children at elementary school out here in the Japanese countryside, lay partly split in the dirt. On the ground were about five baby great tits and the ants were starting to tuck in. My wife flicked as many ants off as possible, and thrust the living birds back into the box. The one dead baby I buried under the rose bush. The parent (mother presumably) has been in there a long time, presumably feasting frenziedly on ants.
Prime suspect is a stray tabby that struts (while baby birds fret) his hour upon our stage. I fear we haven't heard the last of him.
June 22:
Surviving baby great tits doing fine, as far as we can tell. Parents flying in and out of bird box with tasty morsels every day. We are on full moggy watch.
June 26:
Cats are very agile! Commotion in our house as large white feline caught three quarters of its way up the bird house pole. Wife shrieks and makes a bolt for the door. Daughters make violent shooshing noises. I throw something large and heavy in the vicinity and the cat slinks away (with serious attitude mind you, and a look akin to giving me the middle finger) to wait for another day.
Survival of the fittest. Where do our loyalties lie? Not as simple as it might at first seem.
Our family were up in arms when a neighbour, Old man Sato, tried to get rid of the young stray cats in the neighbourhood with a long pole, caveman grunts, and brute force. Now those same stray cats face our wrath, and missiles, simply for doing what they are hard-wired to do.
Darwinism in the back garden. Hoping fervently that the young great tits fly the nest soon. Judging by the size of their food parcels today it can't be long.
posted by jh at 26.6.06
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