Birdbrain(speaking of urban wildlife)

[ritaxis]

So we've got this adolescent scrub jay who comes into our house and eats the dog's food. I suppose this is mildly amusing, though it is very exciting -- and annoying -- for the dog. However, the bird will not leave by the way it comes in (usually this one window, though when that's closed I believe I have seen it come in by the dog's door, which is a tunnel with a latchable door on it, and not a rubber flap -- it's really cute and the outside looks like a little gable with its own slanty roof. No, a mansard gable I think you call it, or a shed roof? Anyway it doesn't make a peak, it slopes down from the wall.)

The idiot bird keeps trying to go out the larger windows, which are not open. It bashes itself regularly against these windows. Frank has rescued the bird personally four times -- this morning it bashed its empty little head against the bathroom window and fell into a bathtub full of thankfully tepid water. It is not a tame bird and it threatened Frank as he approached. Frank considered wringing the little moron's neck or giving it, sodden feathers and all, to the cat or maybe the dog. The cat is utterly uninterested in scrub jays, to the point that he ignores them completely when they attack him. Did you know that orange cats are picked on by birds more than other cats? Loki's the orange type of cat, though he was kind of pink as a baby and now he's sort of beige.

So anyway, Frank did rescue the bird this morning and put it in the sun, and it dried off successfully, and got itself trapped in the house again this afternoon. I took pictures this time.















Please note, the date/time setting is wrong: the pictures were actually taken 6/14/06 at 12 noon Pacific Daylight.

Comments

[pameladean]

Oh dear.

I would be be tempted to leave some dog food outside for it, but I don't know what else you might end up attracting.

I've left cat food out for the crows so they don't depredate other birds' nests. It seems to cut down on the practice, anyway.

And, of course, we got lots and lots of stray and feral cats for a while.

P.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

I don't think I want to put dog food outside. We have way too much opportunistic wildlife as it is. And some of them -- the possums and the raccoons and the crows -- are so confident that I don't want to give them any ideas beyond what they already have. The raccoons are Truffle's special enemies. They really drive her nuts.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

What a smart bird! What a stupid bird! Poor thing. It's very blue. I see Frank is still mostly orange. What if you put the dog food up high, where the average animal can't get it?