We've been doing a catch-and-release on a little mouse at the office, catching him in a Tin Cat, then taking him increasingly far away. Cute little guy, with cute little pink feets and brown fur. He always seemed to manage to find his way back to the office within a day or two so I kept taking him farther and farther. Friday afternoon I took him half a mile away and released him, then brought the Tin Cat back to the office and set it by the chair in the front office, not thinking about it because of course our mousy was now living the life of a free mouse in a field far away.
So this morning I came to the office and saw the tin cat sitting by the chair and thought, "better put it away." So I picked it up and... err... the mouse is back! But, alas, for the final time. He must have hotfooted it back from his field, because he had eaten every lick of peanut butter in the trap, and then quietly expired of dehydration.
R.I.P., little mousey. What a sad way to die. Siiiiigh!
-- Badtux the Humane Penguin
Perhaps you have more then one mouse?
ReplyDeletePerhaps. But I have not caught another mouse since little Mousey bit the dust, so I believe I just had the one mouse. Either that, or he was the last of the gang.
ReplyDelete- Badtux the Mousing Penguin
You did what you could, BadTux. Some critters would rather be home than alive, and Mousey was apparently one such.
ReplyDeleteToday I witnessed the end of an incident in my back yard. When I arrived at the window, there were feathers over much of the yard, and a dense pile of them in one spot... atop which sat some sort of small hawk or maybe a vulture. As I arrived, the hawk lifted off, carrying some misfortunate creature away to become part of the food chain. There is nothing I could... or would... do about it. Nature was definitely "red in tooth [beak] and claw" today, and I simply had to accept it. As surely as I'd never try to feed our cat my own vegetarian diet, I can't deny that hawk its kill, however sad I felt at witnessing it.
Alas, poor mousie - we hardly knew ye.
ReplyDeleteOne day about a year and a half ago a sparrow hawk or peregrine falcon was chowing down on a rabbit under the big pine tree in from of my house. He was picking at him for a couple of hours, then left the carcass for me to dispose of. Damned inconsiderate, I thought.
Cheers!
JzB