I'm Going Batty.........

I get rightly upset when my cats are mauled and even killed, of course I do, they are mine, but I can't help reflecting on the amount of death the little buggers inflict on the local wildlife on an almost daily basis. I wonder , in the great moral scheme of things, if this is actually any better or worse.........personally I'd prefer the lot of them, cats, birds, mice and the rest including BATS just died of old age. I'll get back to the bats later.

Mice, shrews and the occasional rat I get upset about, especially when they keep bringing the same ones back. Last night was a case in point. In came Pickle with a mouse in her mouth and swerved to go downstairs when she found me blocking her way to my bedroom, the favourite play and killing room. Big mistake as I went after her and she put it down whereupon I grabbed it - still alive and no teeth marks! Now I would take that straight out and let it go, but the gang of them knew what Pickle had and all wanted a piece of the action so no way was I going out on my own.

I keep a "recovery box" for small furry and feathered things which need time to get over the trauma of being dragged inside and then rescued abruptly, so into the box went small mouse, while I got on with whatever I was doing. I saw today a photo of a cute cat looking mischievous with a caption which said something like cat owners worry when it goes quiet because it means the cat is up to something. Nonsense, usually in my house it means the idle so-and-so's are all asleep for one of the 18 hours a day they spend not killing anything, whereas the sounds of a healthy disturbance upstairs or on the roof terrace which allows for the full auditory performance of stampeding paws generally evidences a full-on mad half hour OR a murder in progress. So next up comes Teddy, who thinks he lives here, with a mouse and under my bed go the two of them hotly pursued by a couple of others who'd like a turn with the rodent. Teddy doesn't think I own him even if he does think he lives here, so I get a load of growling and plenty of chasing around and under the bed until he scarpers and I pick up a dead mouse. That went out on the bonfire heap. Next in Nelson with another dead mouse, process repeated only he doesn't dare growl at me, mine are actually complete wimps a lot of the time and know who's boss (who am I kidding?). This appears to be a different dead mouse and gets the bonfire heap treatment too. I am still conscious that I'd like to repatriate, liberate, whatever - the little one who has fully recoverd in the recovery box - see, it works! - but every time I sneak out in search of a safe place to let him/her out, there are at least two furry pests running around like loonies and watching my every move.

So we go in, we go out, and in between liberation efforts I get rather tetchy with my lot as two more dead mice are brought in, as fast as one went out another one came in, and I'm pretty damn sure it's the two I've already taken out once each. Grrrrr. Finally I get out on my own and off goes the little one. Good luck mate! I go to bed at last wondering how many more times I'll have to chuck out the bodies that night..........

That's just one evening and that's just the poor little mice and shrews.

And now to why I'm going batty.

They catch small rodents, crickets large and ginormous, birds, long wriggly centipedey things, frogs, even snakes, and now apparently bats. Recently I caught Nelson (yes him again, he thinks it's macho and I'm sure Teddy encourages him as Teddy thinks Nelson is his hero) with a small bat which turned out to be a pipistrel, just a small furry body with surprisingly long black delicate wings, although that was not immediately obvious when I relieved Nelson of something small, solid and almost oblong which turned out to be Batty all tucked up to protect himself/herself as best as he/she could. Batty went into the recovery box, and after getting advice from Ellie who had recently rescued a bat herself and learnt a lot in the process, in went a microwaved cloth for warmth, and a jam jar lid with honey and water, some tissue for cover and to hide under, a bit of squashed apple (it helps to have a fruit bowl which gets forgotten) and a stick because they like to hang. Lid on, box downstairs and shut in the study so nobody can tip it up or get the lid off. Just for good measure inside another box. I want this one to live.

Next day Batty is alive and up the side of the box with his little claws over the edge so I figure he's ok for now and push a bit of paper folded up to make a little gap so as not to trap his feet. Later I went back to see how he was and to let him go as it was nearing twilight. Unbelievably the box proved to be empty after I carefully looked under everything and all round the lid and the edges! Which is when I found him/her up the net curtain at the window. Clearly time to go. So the window got opened enough for a bat to get ut but not for a cat to get in, and some more squashed apple and honey/water went on the outside windowsill as an incentive.

All fine until the next commotion upstairs alerted me to a bunch of guilty looking cats on the landing and a small brown parcel much like before which I took to be Batty. Someone very unsporting must have nabbed him on his way out of the window or - horrors- partaking of the refreshment I'd thoughfully put at danger level. Bugger. I poked the little body and nothing moved, picked him up and was about to put him in the bin when I felt so guilty I thought he deserved better and could go in the recovery box until I could deal with his burial the following day. But the cats seemed rather too interested in the box, and eventually I heard noises from inside and Batty proved to be not only alive but flapping. Bloody good job I hadn't put him in the bin, I thought. Now it isn't easy to release anything those cats want to kill, let alone they never let me go out unsupervised unless they are totally engrossed in something else, like being unconscious or eating something wonderful and even then I;ve got to be quick. So it took a couple of false starts but down the garden I went and off came the lid, holding the box in the air, and out flew Batty and off into the night. I'd call that a result, only they had another one a week later. You can't win them all.