Of Mice and Swallows

Aside from the horses, dogs and cattle we care for, there are unintended inhabitants of the ranch, some wanted, some not. In the country, there is grain, there is grass, there are holes in the ground, there are places to hide everywhere, so mice are a fact of life. Many people detest mice, and I cannot quite understand why. All right, they are rodents. But so are rabbits, hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs, and most people adore them. I suspect it's that long, naked tail that mice have that turns people off. If they had a short fluffy one, they would be adored with the rest of the crowd. To me, they are quite attractive little animals with their bright button eyes, but that doesn't mean I want them in my house. Needless to say, I do not want to kill them, either, so I set out live traps.

(The people who sell live traps apparently do not understand the purpose of a live trap is not to kill the animal. In their instruction sheet they suggest that the easiest way to deal with mice that have been caught is to submerge the entire trap in a bucket of water. No, they definitely do not get the point.)

Mice, just as all creatures, have their own distinctive personalities. Some try hard to escape the trap, gnawing on the metal sides, others will huddle in a corner and give up. I had both kinds in my trap one fine morning. Two shot out as soon as I opened the trap. A third little nose appeared, the bright button eyes looked around, and the little creature disappeared again. I tapped the side of the cage, wiggled it a bit, and said, "Come on, out you go," and off she went. A quick check to see if that was the last captive. Horrors! At least seven, perhaps even eight or nine more tiny little pink blind mice were born in the cage once mother was captured.

I had inadvertently cleaned out a mouse's nest some years ago. Those had been older than these; they were already gray. At the time I did not know what to do. I had no idea where the mother was and decided I had better raise these things myself, and let them free once they were already grown. I took the material of the original mouse nest, placed it in a little wicker basket, and ran off to the drugstore to buy an eyedropper. What happened next made me feel small and insignificant. The tiny things were quite willing to drink milk from the eyedropper and I have no idea what it was that did them in. Within hours, they all turned bright red and died. What their mother could have done with ease, I, the big important human being, could not accomplish.

All that went through my mind when I looked at the tiny little pink things in the trap was: I would not make that mistake again. I called to my helper to bring something soft, and with some hay and part of an old cashmere sweater, and in the shade of a large clump of grass, we made a reasonable little nest, covered it up so that the sun would not hurt them, and left. Mice have a keen sense of smell, and I realized that the only chance these little creatures had would be for mother to come back, pick them up and take them somewhere else to a new nest. We checked an hour or two later, and there were only two left in our makeshift nest. One, unfortunately dead, the other scrambling around, quite lively, still waiting to be rescued. We had succeeded. Little mouse mama must have found a place where she thought she could take her little ones and have them safe and then came back, and one by one, carried them to safety.

I stand in awe of that little mouse mother. She did not have to cross bare ground, but still had to venture out into a relatively light area in the middle of the day, and with only a little grass cover had to carry her brood to safety one by one. I hope she and her little ones have a happy life - JUST NOT IN MY HOUSE!

The swallows are another matter altogether. I have to do a short recap here trying not to bore those contributors who have heard it all before. Quite a number of years ago, a couple of swallows had come through the wide open door and were sitting on a horizontal pipe in my laundry room discussing the pros and cons on building a nest inside my house. They settled on pro and in great haste built a nest because the very next day after it was finished the female began laying eggs. A third swallow tried to intrude and was angrily chased off into the bathroom. From hatching to fledglings leaving, everything had been a happy, harmonious family life. But while the Cleavers were experiencing domestic bliss in the laundry room, everything, one thing after another, went wrong in the bathroom. First, the little male who built a gorgeous nest with all the time on his hands, could not find a mate. With a little help from me he eventually did. Next, only two of the four eggs hatched producing two youngsters of very uneven size. Then, one day, the smaller one was gone. No little body under the nest, nothing, just gone. And the same day, the male disappeared, never to return again. I have, of course, no idea what happened to him. Bringing up baby was no problem for the mother since she had only one mouth to feed. And that was where the trouble lay. A normal nest becomes terribly overcrowded and I think that fledglings, even though they send apprehensive glances over the edge, worrying what might lie ahead, eventually leave because they simply cannot take another elbow in the ribs. Lumpy, ( I named him that because he was so big), had no such incentive. The nest was big, comfortable and mom was bringing him food. He saw absolutely no reason to leave when the time came. It takes five weeks from eggs being laid to fledglings flying. Elegant became agitated. She shrieked at him. She nagged at him. She would get him as far as the coat hanger that was hanging next to the nest from the curtain rod, then he would go right back. That is her picture, suspended in the air over him, yelling at him to get off his butt, only to be met with an open beak, turned her way, "Feed me!" Between her efforts and mine, (I slammed the window shut once she had him outside), we finally got him going.

nice place

The swallow returning the following year was definitely Lumpy. Other swallows spend almost the entire day outside. Not Lumpy. He was sitting in his nest all day, enjoying that nobody could dispute it with him. He turned out to be quite the responsible husband and father. He raised two sets of fledglings that summer.

actually it is perchfect

The arrival day for swallows in Fort MacLeod , at least at my place, is May the eleventh. It was a warm May, so the back door had been open from the beginning of the month. Much to my surprise, on May seventh, there was a chirping from the back of the house. The little guy was sitting on the door left ajar and kept talking away. I don't know if he was announcing his arrival, or merely expressing the joy at having at long last arrived home, the long trek behind him.

The normal routine, in swallow society, is this: The males arrive first and either find a nest from the previous year, or builds one. Only then do the females put in an appearance. (In this regard, the first pair in the first year had been unusual. They had arrived together, approximately in the middle of the season and built a home together).

My talkative friend chose to use neither the laundry room nor the bathroom nest. The first inkling of his plan were two dabs of mud over the doorframe of the back door. I wondered about this choice of location. After all, the dogs and I would be passing right under the nest hundreds of times during the summer and that might cause problems with the female.

The level of trust towards us, the dogs and me, is distinctly different in every pair between the partners, except for that unusual first pair. The male will have grown up in a nest inside the house, will have seen the dogs and me time and again, and had the experience that none of us would ever do him any harm. The female had no such experience, and would consequently never attain the level of trust her partner had.

His confidence turned out to be justified. He, just as his father Lumpy had done, turned out two sets of fledglings by the departure date, September fifth.

The arrival day for swallows in Fort MacLeod , at least at my place, is May the eleventh. It was a warm May, so the back door had been open from the beginning of the month. Much to my surprise, on May seventh, there was a chirping from the back of the house. The little guy was sitting on the door left ajar and kept talking away. I don't know if he was announcing his arrival, or merely expressing the joy at having at long last arrived home, the long trek behind him.

The normal routine, in swallow society, is this: The males arrive first and either find a nest from the previous year, or builds one. Only then do the females put in an appearance. (In this regard, the first pair in the first year had been unusual. They had arrived together, approximately in the middle of the season and built a home together).

My talkative friend chose to use neither the laundry room nor the bathroom nest. The first inkling of his plan were two dabs of mud over the doorframe of the back door. I wondered about this choice of location. After all, the dogs and I would be passing right under the nest hundreds of times during the summer and that might cause problems with the female.

The level of trust towards us, the dogs and me, is distinctly different in every pair between the partners, except for that unusual first pair. The male will have grown up in a nest inside the house, will have seen the dogs and me time and again, and had the experience that none of us would ever do him any harm. The female had no such experience, and would consequently never attain the level of trust her partner had.

His confidence turned out to be justified. He, just as his father Lumpy had done, turned out two sets of fledglings by the departure date, September fifth.

home tweet home

Last years male was a day late, and did he have a time persuading his mate! He, too, occupied the nest over the door frame, and once the female arrived, the arguing raged for a full ten days. I would hear them in the back of the house chattering away at dusk. Eventually it would all calm down and I would look around the corner and there he would be, all by himself on the nest. On the tenth or eleventh day I did my usual peeking around the corner, and there they were, facing each other across the nest. Together at last, he had won the argument.

One by one, eggs appeared in the nest and eventually when she had laid an entire clutch, the female began to hatch them. True to form, if I came even halfway down the hallway, she would flit off the nest and be gone, and I would have to be very careful not to be there for any length of time to allow the eggs to cool. But if it was the male's turn to sit on the eggs, he would simply look over the edge and not be bothered at all no matter how close I came.

In previous years, whenever the eggs had hatched, there would be the tiny, peepsy voices of the young ones asking for food whenever one of the parents arrived. None of this happened this year, and it had me worried. There is no telling if the eggs have hatched because even after the young are out of the shell, the parents continue to sit on the naked little birds to keep them warm, so there is no way of knowing if they are sitting on eggs or on young, and it it seemed to me that it had been an awfully long time since they had started hatching, and I had not heard a peep. Eventually, I saw a naked little head or two on scrawny necks stretched over the edge of the nest, beaks open, and was reassured that there had been at least some hatching going on. Shortly thereafter I found out why these guys didn't make any noise. Or at least, I thought I did. I watched mom alight on the side of the nest, ignoring two or three open beaks thrust at her, and reach far over to the other side of the nest where a little one was huddled down, not asking for food, and giving him some anyway. It appears to me as if in this instance the little characters knew they did not have to do any yelling in order to be fed. And they certainly all did get fed. I had seen four at a time, and much to my surprise, when they became larger and stuck out over the edge, I realized that there were five, and they all looked equally strong, healthy and well looked after.

Not only were the feeding habits of this pair different, when the fledglings flew, there was a surprise again. All other fledglings except Lumpy, of course, had left the house the day they started to fly. These little ones stuck around. (Actually, 'little ones' is a misnomer. At the time of flying, every one of the juniors is much larger than either one of the parents. The parents have been chasing around dawn 'til dusk to feed these guys who have until then made no effort of any kind so they are by far larger than the parents.) Sometimes there would only be one in the nest, then two or three would be back. Or they would be hanging around, sitting on the tops of doors that would be left open. And at last they found their voices. If any one of them saw a parent approaching the nest where their might be only one or two, the ones sitting on doors would start to squeak, "Hey! Over here! What about me?"

This went on for days with all kinds of complications. In order to avoid confusion, (by enticing them to fly to an artificial light), I only have the television set on in the evening, if at all possible. That light is so faint in the back of the house, that I go wandering from piece of furniture to wall to doorknob, fumbling around in the dark. Still, it must have been bright enough for one of the little fatties. There he came, fluttering into my living room, and landing on the top of a picture frame and promptly falling down. There was furniture beneath, various pieces, and I couldn't find him. What to do? I didn't want the dogs to find him and reasoned that if I turned off all the lights, including the T.V., he might just stay put for the night. It worked. When I woke up the next morning, there he was, sitting securely back on the picture frame. I went into my furniture moving routine again so that I could open the door to the porch. But time and again he would fly around the room, carefully avoiding the wide open door only to land once again on the picture frame. This went on for about half an hour, then he decided he'd had enough. He stayed on his picture frame and called for help. Mom and Dad rushed into the room, made an elegant circle, and led him back out the door through the kitchen and out into the hallway.

That was only one of my adventures with these swallows. They were still hanging around at the back of the house and one evening, when I felt my way into the bathroom I, by feeling along, touching the doorknob, moved the door. Instant calamity!~ Two of them had been sitting on top of the door and were now helplessly fluttering, unable to see in the pitch black. In the dark without being able to see, they could bump into anything - one did, into my head - and fall to the floor and be taken by the dogs. I am quite proud of myself for making two instantaneous correct decisions. I flicked on the very bright bathroom light. As soon as they could see, they landed on the shower curtain rod and the window frame respectively and I immediately turned the light back off. The short burst of light had given them a chance to find a landing place, and the ensuing darkness made sure that they stayed there. That was my last adventure with this bunch. They all flew, including the parents, apparently having decided not to raise a second bunch that year.

The unusual behavior of the latest pair of swallows puzzled me for some time, but I think I found the explanation: the drought. When they arrived in May, there was no way to foresee the disaster to come, so they did what swallows are supposed to do. Drought means few insects ( I didn't see a mosquito all summer) so my little pair must have had a difficult time finding enough food for their young. By the time the fledglings flew, early July, they knew they could not find food for another set of young.

That also explains, I think, why the young kept hanging around. Normally, the first batch is booted out by mom and dad in preparation for the second set. Since they knew there would not be one, the little ones were allowed to stay.

Will any of the few that left last fall return? I'll know in a matter of days.