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BS: The Rites of Spring
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Subject: BS: The Rites of Spring From: SINSULL Date: 05 May 13 - 12:52 PM Concert over; last of the dishes washed and put away; I decided to sit on the back porch with a cup of coffee and a book while the sun was high and warm. Alice of course accompanied me which meant I had to prop open the back door or spend my time opening and closing it repeatedly for her. So there I sit sunning, reading...and Freddie creeps past and into the house with a baby squirrel in tow. "No! No Freddie" I shout as I chase him through the house, corner him at the front door and grab the squirrel - very dead but still warm. I got Freddie out the front door, tossed his roadkill after him and flew to the back door just in time to prevent him from getting back in. For a 12 year old cat he is fast. Of course my neighbor witnessed all this and looked over the fence in horror. The squirrel was one who was born in his shed roof and had taken to sitting and watching him work. His wife was horrified. This was almost a pet. And everytime I opened the back door Freddie reappeared like magic and tried to get his toy inside. Happy Spring all! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: ranger1 Date: 05 May 13 - 01:16 PM This post has just reinforced my decision not to let Kaylee outside. I do not need small dead creatures stored in any nooks and crannies, thank you. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: GUEST,CS Date: 05 May 13 - 01:28 PM Proper laugh out loud here Sinsulll! Thanks for that. Not that I approve of the wanton slaughter of wildlife (or 'vermin' depending on how it's classed by society), but cats will be cats, so what you gonna do? |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: dick greenhaus Date: 05 May 13 - 01:30 PM Maybe keep them indoors? A boon to birds. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: GUEST,CS Date: 05 May 13 - 01:45 PM Nah, my cats only catch mice. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: gnu Date: 05 May 13 - 02:21 PM "wanton slaughter"? They want to slaughter. As you said, it's in their nature. As for caging a wild animal, I disagree. I know it's near impossible to train a cat not to kill birds but it's not like cats are good shots with a shotgun so the kill rate is acceptable to me. And, squirrels are rats with bushy tails. Anyone who lets squirrels nest in an attic probably has bats in his belfry too. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: ranger1 Date: 05 May 13 - 02:51 PM It's not the rodents I object to, but cats rarely confine their killing to just rodents. One of the biggest causes of death among songbirds in North America is domestic cats. Even if the bird gets away, it rarely survives due to the large amount of toxic bacteria in a cat's mouth and on its claws. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: frogprince Date: 05 May 13 - 07:55 PM "the large amount of toxic bacteria in a cat's mouth and on its claws" Thin about it; Ted Nugent had a brush with "Cat Scratch Fever"...how many years ago now?...and look at the condition the man's brain is in! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: frogprince Date: 05 May 13 - 07:59 PM And after you "thin about it", you might think about it... |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: Joe Offer Date: 05 May 13 - 08:51 PM Ferget about frickin' cats - listen to Stravinsky! That's the real Rite of Spring. It's about sex, not slaughter.... |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: SINSULL Date: 05 May 13 - 10:01 PM I always suspected that you are a dirty old man, Joe. Ever see Nijinsky dance the Rites of Spring? It ends with him having an orgasm on a scarf stolen from a nymph. Far preferable to dead sqirrels and mourning neighbors. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: ranger1 Date: 06 May 13 - 12:09 AM It's a good thing my first cat didn't live next to your neighbors. She was supposed to be an indoor only cat, but she was so obnoxious and loud about wanting to go out that I gave up. Her favorite thing to hunt and kill was squirrels, and I would frequently come home in the evening to a row of headless squirrel corpses lined up on the back deck. Nice of her to share. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: gnu Date: 06 May 13 - 06:39 AM Did you put them in the fridge for later like she wanted you to do? |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: Midchuck Date: 06 May 13 - 09:18 PM I always thought of squirrels as rats with furry tails and a preference for living in trees. I have no problem with any predator that prefers them. Peter |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: bbc Date: 07 May 13 - 07:57 AM I, currently, have 380 photos of squirrels on my flickr page. Would you wish this little fellow dead? At least, they're photogenic! Our New Baby |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: gnu Date: 08 May 13 - 06:41 AM Some cute! Nah, I wouldn't want to see him dead if he stayed in the wild. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: keberoxu Date: 01 May 17 - 05:08 PM And how bright-eyed and bushy-tailed is everyone in YOUR neighborhood? There is definitely an increase in roadkill. There must be critters venturing out who have other things on their minds than oncoming vehicles. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: BobL Date: 05 May 17 - 02:46 AM I once had a cat who brought in a live baby rabbit, very carefully, holding it by the scruff of its neck like a kitten. I think he wanted to adopt it - he was like that. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: Stu Date: 05 May 17 - 06:05 AM Should be kept indoors. Bloody things slaughter millions of songbirds (55 million in the UK per year!), small mammals (they don't discriminate between common and rare), small reptiles, arthropods and amphibians: 275 million small prey items a year in total in the UK. If a cat appears in our garden I'll give the damn thing the fright of it's life (our next door neighbour has around 15 or so, we're not sure). I'd never hurt one, although I'm thinking of getting a big water squirty gun thing to give them a bit of negative reinforcement when they stalk our sparrows. A friend had to do this when one of the sodding things was trying to grab the young kingfishers that were being raised by parents that were part of a population recolonising a local bit of river after it had been cleaned up. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: Raggytash Date: 05 May 17 - 06:29 AM Just think Stu, if those 275 million were still alive and bred, several to a litter (or whatever) once or twice a year ......... |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: Stu Date: 05 May 17 - 07:18 AM Ah, the fecundity of nature! So if all of those 270 million did breed without predation by domestic cats, how many would survive to an age where they might successfully reproduce? Only a fraction (as Darwin well knew). I know what the situation in the US is but here in the UK we are suffering significant declines in many of our small animals, including sparrows and starlings which are amongst the animals most commonly predated by domestic cats, especially when young and dispersing to new territories. It's not just predation: the interbreeding of wild populations of indigenous felids (such as the Scottish Wildcat for instance) is causing the extinction of the species through hybridisation. In the case of the Scottish Wildcat, I'm not sure if there are any pure Wildcats left. It's always a difficult discussing this sort of thing as people are attached to their pets and suggesting letting yours out in some way is damaging to the local fauna (and hence all of us) makes folk (understandably) very defensive: "You'll have to pry my pussy from my cold, dead, hands!" ;-) Can't see the problem with keeping them in, many folk do. Everyone happy then! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: Raggytash Date: 05 May 17 - 07:34 AM Ha !!! Have you ever tried to persuade a cat to do anything it doesn't want to. I have three of the little buggers, one is old and decrepit, one thinks that food should be served on a saucer, on demand, the third is a homicidal maniac. Though he is scared of his own shadow. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: Raggytash Date: 05 May 17 - 07:36 AM Strangely enough we rarely see a small bird in our garden, although I think that's a lot to do with the Herring Gulls which nest locally. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: Sandra in Sydney Date: 05 May 17 - 08:12 PM Cat tracking program makes owners re-think pets' behaviour and how they manage their moggies. The old nursery rhyme may have questioned where the pussy cat had been, but a new research program reveals that just like the moggy that went to London, Australian domestic cats love to roam. Using global positioning system (GPS) devices, the program used at Lithgow, in central-west New South Wales, tracked the daily movements of a group of pet cats. The results shocked some of their owners. The program was run by the Central Tablelands Local Land Services (LLS) with funding from the Commonwealth's National Landcare Program. Senior land service officer Peter Evans said the 'citizen science' project was designed to raise awareness about just how far domestic cats could roam. "When you speak to a lot of cat owners they say: "Oh my cat just sleeps on the end of my bed, it doesn't go anywhere," Mr Evans said. "[But] we've seen some work that's been done down at the University of South Australia in Adelaide and we actually know that's not the case." Nearly 30 local pet owners showed interest in the program but the number of cats eventually tracked decreased to 13 after some animals refused to wear the harnesses fitted with GPS devices. Mr Evans said the participating cats each wore the tracking devices for up to 10 days and in total, more than 100 cat track data sets were collected, each representing 24 hours in the life of the animal. The GPS points tracked by the devices were then superimposed on aerial maps of Lithgow, creating a series of yellow lines that look a lot like a pre-schooler's scribble. Mr Evans said the results were fascinating. "If you look at some of the tracks, it's phenomenal how much they're out in the streets," he said. "Some of the cats have stayed relatively close — 10, 15 or 20 doors down — and we've actually had one cat that's gone three kilometres from home." check out the pic showing a day's movement of one cat! A new suburb in our national capital is for inside cats only as domestic cats prey on 67 local species of wildlife around Canberra I had thought of getting a cat again after 35 years without one when I move later this year, but keeping a cat in a home full of small collectable things & other fragile stuff ... The cat I had back in the olden days thought window-sills were cat walks & I thought they were pot-plant stands, & we had many an argument (meow? me?) I ended up putting strings around the pots & taping them to the window. Watching a friend's Siamese walking along her glass cabinet when she left the door open ... It was a very sure-footed cat, but ... |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: Donuel Date: 06 May 17 - 07:01 AM A squirrel can live twenty (20) years. So can cats. But honestly cats are great con artists. Squirrels are wisely wary. No they are not rats any more than a Chipmunk who lives only in North America. Be sure to cover your rain barrels, or chipmunks will drown. I have ground nesting birds so I can not have cats outside here, Nature is red in tooth and claw but I try to even the odds for the innocent. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: Senoufou Date: 06 May 17 - 01:15 PM Our blooming village swans are at it again! They inhabit two different places, The Pits (water-filled gravel pits) and The Lakes (about a mile away) For some strange reason, every year the stupid cob and pen waddle painfully the whole mile every day, right through the village along the main street, with their poor little cygnets manfully trying to keep up, (and collapsing with exhaustion now and then) until they reach The Lakes. Then they do the whole thing in reverse. So twice a day we have our hearts in our mouths in case a farm-feed lorry or a fast car squashes the lot flat. And now there's a family of blasted ducks doing the same thing! But sadly, the female was indeed squashed flat yesterday, and the poor tiny ducklings scattered in panic. A fox will surely get them. It's so heart-breaking. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: keberoxu Date: 06 May 17 - 05:35 PM Well, I can't find it now to save my life. Maybe I will stumble across it later, and make a fresh post with a link. However: Eliza / Senoufou reminds me of a story with a happier ending. It concerns ducks and ducklings. In Farmington Hills, Michigan, there is a full-enclosure monastery of nuns in the Dominican order [Order of Preachers or O. P.) . This monastery is a fairly recent building as these things go. The community itself was from Detroit, one of many such groups of nuns who started out in the heart of North American cities, in order to minister to the faithful there. Some few groups of cloistered religious keep to their inner-city ministries, like the Dominican nuns in the Bronx, whose neighborhood is notorious. But these Detroit nuns, as other communities have done, made a decision years ago to head for the suburbs, where they have been ever since. And in so doing, they introduced an obstacle to one very tenacious pair of ducks. When these ducks returned North at winter's end, there was this big old building with an enclosure and a high wall. Now, of course, the grown-up ducks had no problem flying over the wall. However, there is this one area of water to which Mother Duck always takes her hatchlings for their first swims; and there is the area where she nests. There is a certain distance between those two areas. You guessed it: the monastery, and its high wall, landed smack in between those two spots. And her whatever-you-call-it, "clutch?" chorus line? of baby ducklings were in no way prepared to fly over the wall, and it was too far around to walk. So one fine warm day, Mother Duck waddles to the monastery door or gate or something. And she has a line of ducklings behind her. Monasteries, it turns out, are highly vigilant places, especially during the day. Somebody hollered "Open the doors!" Because Mother Duck wouldn't go away without trying to go through. And what happened that year has happened every year since, as far as I have heard. Mother Duck marched through the open door and followed her instincts down the hallway of the convent to the far side of this building, where somebody else raced to open another door. And the ducklings trailed their mother, some of them slipping and sliding on the highly polished floors, through the building, out the other side, to the water, where they finally got a swim. And they would go in and out that way every day until the fledglings could fly on their own. Every year. Finally the nuns published a picture book about this situation, loaded with photographs, depicting this processional. And now I can't find it. Worse, the monastery's old website has done a vanishing act. I am certain the monastery is still where I remember it in Michigan, but their pages are offline. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: Greg F. Date: 06 May 17 - 06:14 PM Cats in the U.S. are an invasive species that have a severe negative impact on native fauna if allowed to roam outdoors. Scientific fact. As such, they should be extirpated. "Feral" i.e "stray" cats should be eliminated, not fostered. This from someone who has had, and currently has cats, and is very fond of them, and keeps them indoors, where they should be kept by responsable owners. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: Senoufou Date: 07 May 17 - 03:40 AM What a lovely story keberoxu! Those kindly nuns, and how clever of the mother duck to have such a good sense of direction! I wish there was some solution to our Swan Problem. My husband had never seen a swan before coming to UK, and he was very upset seeing the silly things dragging themselves painfully along the main street. He wanted to lift them all up and put them in the boot of his car, then convey them over to the Lake. I had to explain that adult swans can be very dangerous, and will attack viciously if confronted. Even when I walk alongside them trying to slow down the traffic, the pen always hisses loudly, but he's never attacked me. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: Stu Date: 07 May 17 - 09:22 AM I agree, great story Keberoxu! I was thinking about the keeping of cats indoors and wondering if was cruel. As I said, I know folk with cats that do keep them indoors, and one person has built a sport cat aviary in their back garden so the cat get fresh air when it wants. Not a bad idea. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: Senoufou Date: 07 May 17 - 11:27 AM I meant to say the cob hisses loudly (the male) not the female. She just stares ahead gamely plodding on. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: keberoxu Date: 07 May 17 - 01:01 PM I have heard that swans are particularly vicious towards geese, out of territoriality. Do the geese give the swans a wide berth, Eliza? |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: Senoufou Date: 07 May 17 - 01:21 PM They seem to get along with the wild Canada geese (they've gone 'home' now) but I don't know how they behave towards domestic geese. I wonder if it's because the domestic geese are white, like the swans, whereas the Canada geese are grey and completely different? The white birds may trigger aggression as looking a bit like interloping swans. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The Rites of Spring From: Senoufou Date: 07 May 17 - 01:25 PM If you Google 'Our Swans Lyng On Line' you'll see some photos of the poor things struggling along the road. |
