Saving Jerry

I can't remember (and can't be arsed to look back) whether I ever mentioned that the family acquired a cat back in autumn 2014. I never wanted a cat, family were adamant they did. In the interest of family peace, as always, I being the man of the house backed down and gave in. So we have had a cat for over two years. He's a git. I could fit cow bells on his collar and he'd still manage to catch something. He's not exactly proficient - it's not like we have mounds of corpses every day - but he does catch the odd shrew, vole, mouse and recently mole! He also had a nasty turn a couple of weeks ago, quite likely after having had a toad in his gob. How I laughed at that as he slobbered and foamed at the mouth for an hour before and after having his face liberally drenched in cold water.

Anyway, this evening he had a Wood Mouse giving him the run around in the garden. The mouse had the upper hand, but nevertheless I stepped in and saved the mouse. I took a snap, figuring that the temporary blindness and subsequent heart failure would still be better than being played with by the git.

Here's Jerry, shortly before he scarpered for good, free of feline jaw around his scrawny neck.

Wood Mouse

The other thing that the git cat does do, which appears to be beneficial, is deter some of the moth-eating early morning birds. Quite often in the past I've had to race the juv Blackbirds and Robins to the traps, but I've not had any problems so far this year. The fact that the bleedin cat probably eats the odd moth still outweighs the lack of moth-munching thrushes and chats.

Here's some recent garden moths that neither he or any birds munched.

Plain Golden Y

Fan-foot

Small Fan-foot

Beautiful Hook-tip

Udea olivalis

 

Dark Sword-grass

This small male is almost certainly a primary immigrant, and the first in the garden since 2013. It's also the earliest I've taken one during a year - the previous earliest coming in late July.

Messing about with Barn Owl vomit ....

For most of the day, we have enjoyed the peace and quiet that comes with having no children to pander to. Isabelle has got into a weekend routine of going into town on the bus, whilst the boys were away on a Cubs outing to Hendon RAF Museum. All just aswell for me really, seeing as the day started with a beer and whisky induced hangover after a works do last night ....

Later in the day I set about a practice run with the Barn Owl pellets. I selected a medium sized one, gave it a quick soak (though it was pretty fresh anyway) and dug in with some dissecting needles and entomological tweezers.

I selected the darkest one from above, medium sized and fresh

Absolutely fascinating it was. I was hoping to find a skull and lower jaws to try and ID, but ended up with four skulls (though I only found seven lower jaws). The numbers of other smaller bones was ridiculous - no way I was going to make any effort to collect and separate them all. I just honed in on the larger and hopefully more identifiable bits. Trying to clean the massed hair/fur off of everything is a right pain - I just got it off enough to see what I had. I'd already searched the tinternet and found a useful guide to identifying the various bits. Here's a few shots of various bits I found (most can be clicked for big):

Four skulls - three voles and one mouse. The skulls are apparently often damaged/crushed.

Corresponding lower jaws.

This is a vole skull, identifiable by the zig-zag teeth.

The serrations running the whole length of the teeth confirm - this is a Field Vole.

The more normal looking teeth with cusps confirm this is a mouse or rat.

Removal of the teeth shows the pattern of the root sockets (marked with yellow dots). This pattern confirms it is a Wood Mouse.

Wood Mouse lower jaw.

A couple of hip bones, showing the socket for the thigh bone (femur).

A few lower leg bones (tibia/fibula).

Various thigh (femur) and arm (humerus) bones. Probably.

I need to have a better look to find/ID the shoulder blades and forearm bones. I did find some odd large round bones which I've since realised after looking again at the guide are 'ear capsule' bones which would be part of the complete skull. So, in one pellet I found the undigestible bits of three Field Voles and one Wood Mouse. Now to find some Tineid larvae in an older pellet?

Nibbling at my Nuts

It's not often that I get any mammalian action at my bird feeders, and then it's either a grey bushy tailed tree rat eating nuts or a big instinct driven feline trying to eat the birds.

Whilst checking the moth traps last night though I spotted something hanging on my nuts. I nipped in for the point and shoot and luckily it stayed there - at least until the flash went off and then it scarpered pretty quickly.

Wood Mouse

At least I'm pretty sure it's a Wood Mouse - smallish, big ears, as happy up a tree as on the ground ... let me know if I'm wrong.