Part I and II, further flat cat adventures

Monday July 11, Part I

Carolina Wrens have been attempting to nest in a bucket in the garage. I appreciate the effort. We’ve seen them fly in and then quickly out and yesterday morning as I was leaving to spend the day with my cousin in Missouri (cousins on the town, thrift store crawl edition) one of those diminutive bodies flew in touched down on the bucket and then left. When I took the bucket down there were pieces of leaf and dried grass in it, silly birds. The bucket has now been emptied and turned over on the shelf, I know they can find a better place, but I think that of all the birds the thought of the wren nesting that close makes me unguardedly happy.

This morning a Northern Mockingbird was at the top of the lonely pine again with at least four songs in its repertoire. It has been there the past two days as the weather cooled a bit, the rain came. All the birds have been singing. It is also cicada time. So, a lot of music happening around the yard. But no groundhog capture yet. This is a tough one, it goes into the trap, but only so far eating the peanuts as it goes. So, I’ve put out extra peanuts into the trap and when I check it just shells. But it doesn’t flip the door. (The moral of the story is, don’t get cocky) I put my yard-cam out the Saturday night to see what was going on and brought in yesterday afternoon. I have pictures of a blue jay, a sparrow, a rabbit, a squirrel, a couple of raccoons came by in the night and then around 11AM the groundhog can be seen coming out from under the deck and then getting awfully close to the camera and sort of flipping me the bird. A cheeky character.

Tuesday July 12, Part II

Between 1124AM and 1139AM today I caught a groundhog. I had added an extra trap, many more peanuts and more camouflage. Right before lunch I took this little flat cat to a wilder area, I sang Born Free, I told it to have a good life and quit chittering at me. And then I came home. Will this be the last groundhog? Probably not, but will I be able to keep them from living under my deck? Yes. Maybe. I hope so. Will they stay out of my neighbor’s garage? That’s for my neighbor to worry about. I really have done all I need to do, all I can. He knows that peanuts work best. He has traps. Good luck to you.

Tomorrow morning we’re breaking the heat wave (again) for a day or two. Tonight, I’ll refill the last little hole that was dug out and I have some concentrated pepper spray that I will use before I head in for the night. I haven’t been putting bird feeders out for a few weeks as too many cowbirds were in the area. Once the feeders were gone, they even left the lawn – back to the prairie with you, you colonizers!

So, it is Tuesday. In the raised bed in the backyard, I have cosmos blooming, corn has come up and I just discovered while weeding that there are tomatoes blooming. A pleasant surprise as I had seen flat cats grazing there quite often.