Just for Fun No C&C will be given: Death of a great titmouse chick(warning: sad picture, please don't look if sensitive)

Hi,

We have been anticipating this sad moment to arrive for a while but it doesn't make facing the reality any easier :-(. Some time ago a couple of great titmouses have chosen to set up their nest in our urban garden. We have this man-made nest box hanging high on one of the garden walls although it has never been occupied before. At first, we were joyed when we saw that there were eggs in there. Then we've noticed that our two cats were keeping a keen eye on the nest. That was bad news of course. So we did everything to keep them away till the chicks could fly away from the nest. Well they almost did do so but yesterday our large cat came running into the house followed by an attacking mother titmouse. Running after it, our daughter has discovered the cat upstairs with a baby titmouse next to him. It was wounded with bite marks and totally disoriented. Our daughter tried to mend to the seemingly broken wing and ease the hurt. She's put the chick under a lamp to keep it warm and tried to feed it. Later in the evening, the chick has recovered some strenght and started calling out for her mom. So we have put her out in the garden but she could not fly. The mom was watching from a nearby roof and calling out to her baby. Eventually, out of helplessness, we have decided to place the baby bird back in its nest of birth and hope for a miracle to take place overnight.

This morning, I have opened the cover of the nest to be faced with this sad, sad situation. This little bugger deserves to be remembered despite its brief existence and here is my tribute to it:



Sadly yours,

Hi Cem
this is a real sad story… I imagine what you all feel… A bad Sunday!

However it may help to rmember that life is real fragile, we have to care our relatives but also all animals around us…

Don't be too angry after your cat, it's certainly belongs to his past to hunt birds though I'm sure your cat as got all the food he needs…

Maybe it is more difficult to educate domestic animals than our own kids ;-)

I like the simplicity of your picure, I maybe would have cropped the green "frame"…

Cem

Thanks for sharing. Whilst sad, this is also part of life. Last night Sue and I were privileged to be sitting ona tree stump after a walk in the woods and a fox wlaked past about 30 yards away carrying a pheasant it had just killed (we saw the other fly when they were disturbed). Sad for the pheasant, but good for fox and cubs...

Oh, I like the picture. The edge of the box frames it nicely and there is no pretension as to the subject. Good work.

Mike

Some times bad things happen to cats as well. The link is to a video that is a bit vulgar.
http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=39204

Hi folks, thanks for your kind comments. I did not explicitly state that I wasn't angry with our cat for following his natural instincts. Let me say that I am fully aware of the "cruelties of mother nature" and how millions of animals are killed daily either by other animals or by us the humans. So please spare me any comments you might wanna make about me being silly and a sentimental old sod, I know that too ;-).

Cheers,

PS: The light green, blurred frame is the box in which the nest was located, the picture is taken from above with the top lid taken away. I think that it frames the picture nicely, that's why I composed it as such.

Hi Cem,

This is a poignant story. So is the link Mike Shimwell just gave us to the photographer who chronicled rural and village life in Devon. When he died, he was just 60 yrs old! Again a tragedy. Life is almost always tragic like that. It hardly every is lived to its full potential.

Each organism in sequence is eaten by a creature of it's hazard. Your story is all the more touching as you have put your heart of your own precious family with that of this young fragile bird. This loss then became so personal. However, it's going on all the time and we must blind ourselves from this or go mad.

Asher