Jackdaw in a Breakfast Cereal Box

This Jackdaw (Coloeus monedula) is on its way to the Vale Wildlife Hospital at Beckford. It is an adult bird, but a small one and not in good condition, even I think before the cat brought it in. Luckily it had managed to get away from the cat and didn’t seem too badly hurt, although it was unable to fly. I’m not sure how the cat got it as while there are plenty of jackdaws around, including nesting in the surrounding trees, they rarely come to the ground unless there are scraps there (which there weren’t this morning). The bird seemed in heavy moult, so maybe it was already grounded? Hoping the vets at the hospital can help it recover.

Catted!

The cat caught this just-fledged blackbird the other evening. I freed it pretty quickly, and put it on the shed roof, but the bird was couldn’t fly and after a while its parents gave up trying to encourage it to move. One wing was clearly damaged. After keeping it overnight the bird was still alive and quite perky, so I took it to Vale Wildlife Hospital, which is just up the road. At 10.00 AM on Saturday morning, the chick was the 7th “catted” bird to be brought in that day. It tuned out the wing was broken, and likely would not mend easily, so there’s probably not much that could be done. Young ground feeding birds, such as blackbirds, which can’t yet fly very well are easy prey for cats, so it’s a grim time of year for nature loving cat owners.

After being a bit quiet for birds lately, the garden is now full of families: blue tits, long-tailed tits, bullfinches one day, robins, noisy starlings, jackdaws and magpies. So far there are no other bird casualties, though the cat did catch and kill one of the grey squirrel pups. As well as cats there are a variety of avian predators the birds have to look out for, with sparrowhawk, red kites, buzzards, kestrel (a new species for the list) and even a wandering peregrine passing over in the last few days.

Shredded Hawk-moth

Presumably I have the cat to thank for my finding this Eyed Hawk-moth (Smerinthus ocellata, #590) by the back door, and unfortunately also for the state it was left in. The brown stripe on its head, and pink on the wings and even a small bit of remaining blue eye identify the remains as this species. The Herald Moth (Scoliopteryx libatrix) on the other hand was caught in the garden shed in a spider’s web.

I took the plunge and invested in a moth trap, which should arrive in a week or so. It looks like I’ll have to lock up the cat on trapping nights.