Spring Chores

By lunch time yesterday all 56 nest boxes have been cleaned-out.  There would have been 58 but two were broken and have to go back to the shop for refurbishing.

An observation.

Many more of the boxes were occupied by mice than would be considered normal.  A box inhabited by mice is easy to detect.  It stinks.

It will smell of urine and you can catch a whiff of it from a distance.  Lifting the lid you will find it filled with fluff and mice.  The base of the box will be soaked and I typically have to evict the nest (with mice), up-end-it for a couple of weeks to dry it out and air it out.

As of yesterday all the mice boxes had been vacated.  Curiously, about a half-dozen of them had been occupied by mice but the mice perished before building their nests.  There they were - the corpses of Mr. and Mrs. Mouse sometimes with other mice.  As near as  I can figure they were squatting in the bird box when a cold snap killed them.

Before hitting the sack I let Girlfriend out to do  her business.  Standing on the porch we both heard the alarm call of a deer.  I swung the flashlight to the west and caught a pair of whitetails probably 40 yards from the house before they bolted.

Alone in the dark we could hear the peent of a solitary woodcock.