Jr. and I went on a short day trip that involved a gun show. I didn't want to go too far because I am taking a few days off and going on a longer trip next week. We had a lot of sun and hot temperature so when I got home I just wanted to get comfortable and kick back for awhile. I was doing this when the fun started.

I was watching the mockingbird build her nest a few weeks ago. She built close to the house where my cats roam and I figured then she would have problems. I didn't know I would be part of them at the time. Mockingbirds are not very bright when it comes to nest building. They build flimsy nests that are very often in a not too well thought out location. They are also not very bright when it comes to harrassing cats that are too close to their nest. The bird here has been dive-bombing and pecking my cats for several days.

Fuzzy is one of my cats. Of the four who hang around my house he is absolutely the dumbest one and the biggest coward. He sometimes will not go out for days so he won't have to fight a neighbor cat. He goes hunting but until now never catches anything. He will sit for hours under a tree in the rain if he thinks something is in the tree. But until today I've never seen him catch anything. I went to my ammo room which is located outside my house and saw fuzzy coming up the driveway with the momma mockingbird in his mouth. I didn't know if he had killed her so I opened the door and called for Jr. to come help see if she was still alive. I don't have anything against mockingbirds, except when they decide to burst into song on a moonlit night at two a.m. just outside my window, and I wanted to let her go if she was still alive because I knew she had babies around there somewhere.

When I opened the door Fuzzy ran in with the bird still in his mouth and ran between Jr.'s legs on the way to my office. Kiki (my granddaughter named him because at the time she couldn't say kitty) the bob-tailed Manx devil cat and Petey, my rat terrier, joined in the chase with Jr. and I and we all ended up in the office. I shut the door to the small room about the time the bird got loose. It was trying to fly out the window while two cats were bouncing off the walls and everything else in there trying to recatch that scared bird. The dog was barking non-stop as the bird repeatedly hit the glass window trying to get outside. Jr. and I tripped over each other and the animals several times until he finally caught the bird. Now the cats were coming after him and the dog was still barking.

I finally managed to lock all the animals in the office and went with Jr. outside to look at the bird. We walked out on the deck as the bird made a sort of growling noise. We didn't know if the bird was hurt until Jr. opened his hands and let it go. It flew off apparently unhurt with only a few feathers missing. About an hour later I saw it feeding one of it's young over near the woodsline. I'll keep the cats penned up for a few days until the babies can learn how to fly.