Hmmm.... Very interesting.

(1) Aplodontia -- First sighted wandering around in the driveway and under
the carport on Tuesday, June 22. Off and on yesterday (Wednesday) and last
night I was hearing a brief crashing noise or scratching or something so
brief and infrequent I couldn't locate it. Sounded like it was on the roof
or on the side of the house. This morning (Thursday) when I emerged from the
shower, I heard it again, then in a blurry flash saw blurred 'something'
jumping up against the frosted basement bathroom window. It gave me quite a
start; especially after having just watched the 9pm X-Files and timely
episode on Cable FX. You guessed it. It was the Aplodontia. It had fallen
into the basement window well outside the bathroom and is now currently
trapped there. Talk about seeing this little beastie up close and personal!
One 'tweet' replied to yesterdays post saying he'd drop everything to rush
over to add this not uncommon but seldom seen creature to his mammal life
list. So, I guess I'll keep him there for a little while. I don't want to
leave in there too long. I'm sure it's not happy and I'll probably trap it
which should be easy and transport him out of town to happier surroundings,
unless someone wants it for some reason. Zoo maybe? In the meantime, I just
dashed out to Albertson's down the street to get some lettuce (actually a
salad mix) and put in a pan of water which he took to instantly.

(2) the mystery of the dead birdlets -- Had I waited a few more minutes
before posting yesterday and following further investigation, I would have
resolved the mystery of the less than week old dead birdlets found strewn on
the sidewalk. Turns out these were the entire clutch of the 5 Black-capped
Chickadees which I'd thought at the time of posting were still housed safely
in their little house. After posting, I got suspicious when I went back out
and saw the adults still bringing food to the house but pausing for long
periods and flying around the entrance hole with food in their beaks and
generally acting confused. They'd pere in the hole, look around, fly around,
obviously very confused. Normally when they've been feeding their young the
past several days, they would fly straight into the nest box without even
stopping. I also noted both Winter and Bewicks Wrens intermittently checking
out the box as well. Upon closer inspection, I discovered that the young
chickadees were no longer in the box. Hmm. A raid but by what? Surely not
the wrens. They seemed much too small and unlikely to go in and and remove
these chicks which were about the same size and weight as the wrens.

About an hour later, I noted a pair of House Sparrows perched on top of the
house. Uh-oh. Now the picture is coming into focus. This is not good.
House Sparrows are fairly much a 'rare' bird around this neighborhood. I
almost never see them, even when I'm in a winter time feeding mode. However,
for the past several days, I've seen a pair of House Sparrows hanging around
in the yard, usually in woods and Douglas Firs, and generally in places where
they seemed out of place. As long ago as last week I thought this was rather
curious and kind of adopted a wait-and-see attitude and hoped this wasn't the
start of an undesirable trend and I began developing my first murmurs of
concern about the chickadee box even though they weren't showing an obvious
interest in it.

Then this morning, my worst fears were confirmed. The pair of House Sparrows
were definitely taking an intense interest in the chickadees nest box. They
were perched atop the house, copulating even, and frequently inspecting the
nest which 24 hours ago was occupied by the chickadees. Setting up house
here simply will not be tolerated. I have been a little concerned with this
bird house thinking the holes might be a bit too big and might attract
something undesirable, House Sparrows specifically. I was right. The holes
need to be modified, but in the meantime, the house has been promptly taken
down for the season and these unwelcome House Sparrows will just have to move
on or else face the wrath of more drastic measures.

I am totally astonished at how methodical, malevolent, and premeditated this
whole eviction or 'ethnic cleansing' of the chickadees was carried out. The
House Sparrows didn't just simply go into the nest box and toss the babies
out onto the ground. They hauled them out one by one, carried them about 15
feet and deposited them all nice and neat on the sidewalk in sort of mass
execution style.
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Meanwhile, back to the Aplodontia and as I write here, he's really taken to
the lettuce and is loading up. Two days in the window well, I'm sure he was
starved. In fact it's become very active and quite noisy jumping around,
scratching the window, and trying to get out. I'm not going to leave it in
there much longer, but if anyone wants to drop by to take a look, you can
give me a call at 425-865-0276. I'll be around this morning and early
afternoon and again this evening after 5 or 6 or so, and if there is enough
interest, I suppose even into tomorrow.

Richard Rowlett (Pterodroma at aol.com)
Bellevue, WA