Trixie the Birdie Slayer

Immediately after being let outside yesterday morning, I heard the commotion that I've heard several times before that indicates just one thing--Trixie caught another bird.

Many times before, Trixie has caught young grackles in our yard. She's extremely quick, and they're not fast enough to escape. The adult birds always make a fuss which lets me know when she has caught one.

This time, however, she caught a baby cactus wren. But before she could do any damage, the very protective parents were under attack, swooping down and pecking her in a divebomb formation. I rushed outside to stop her from eating the bird, only to see her with a look of, "What the hell?" on her face as she's being distracted by the parents.

I yelled for her to come into the house and the little bird scampered away into the corner of the yard. I walked over to see if the little bird was injured. As I got closer, the parents expressed their unhappiness at my approaching their baby. He was fine, so I left him there.

At some point during the day, the baby's parents moved him to a safer location--under our garden hose reel. They kept a close watch on him until dark, when I could see he had nestled down to sleep behind the reel. I sat a little container of water nearby.

He was still there this morning, and I could hear him crying for his mother. She continued to keep watch. When I opened the door to let Titus and Trixie outside, he scurried out of his hiding place into another corner of the yard. I kept a watch on the dogs to make sure they didn't go near him.

Now, I'm not sure what to do with this little bird. Research tells me I should leave him there as long as his parents are still in the area. It also tells me that when a baby cactus wren leaves the nest, he is still dependent on his parents for food for about a month! I don't think I can continue to monitor my dogs that closely for a full month. And then there's the stray cats that roam the neighborhood. I'd be pretty pissed if I'd protected him all this time, only to find he'd been eaten by a cat. I know, survival of the fittest and all that. But before we had the dogs, the stray cats were always leaving half-eaten doves in our yard and it freaked me out. Amazing how having two big dogs around has made that stop.

Anyway, I hope this little bird learns to fly soon. I don't know how long we can keep this up.

Posted by geekchik at July 16, 2004 12:51 PM