For the past week or so, Peter Rabbit has been visiting our garden.  I have tried hunting him with the camera, but he is very shy and uncooperative.  The color of his fur seems a perfect match for the dry ground, so when he is still, he disappears into the background unless his white tail is visible. The fence around the garden is supposed to be rabbit and deer fencing.  It has very small spacing at the bottom to keep the little critters out.  However, I found a few places where the ground did not meet the bottom of the fence and have since filled in those spots.  Of course the gate presents easy access to the cottontail bunnies we have here.  There is more than enough room for them to get under.  In fact, a few nights ago as we finished dinner, we looked out and saw the rabbit was between the garden and the house.  Before I could grab the camera to get a picture, the rabbit dashed under the gate and ran into the garden — and apparently escaped through one of those low spots on the other side.  So far, I don’t think Peter has really done more than munched on a couple low hanging strawberries as they ripened.  I suspect we will be playing hide and seek in the garden for weeks to come.

Yesterday morning as I cleared my breakfast dishes from the table, I noticed a cat approaching along the back of the house. A very pretty cat that was not a stray or a neighbor’s pet. It had short tail and pointed ears along with spotted markings on its fur. As I reached for the camera which fortunately was there on the desk, the bobcat came right up to the kitchen door and looked in. I had to take the photos through the door. I tried to follow outside as it moved on to get a few other pictures, but the photo op did not last and the cat disappeared into the morning fog.

This morning I found the area around the two red rump pair cages looking like a crime scene. Blood was spattered all over the cage, the nearby walls and ceiling. Apparently something had caused the birds to have a night fright episode and they injured themselves flapping around in the dark despite the night lights. The bloodshed was an indirect result of something that happened a few weeks ago. Then, I just found lots of red rump wing feathers scattered around. The birds managed to drop all of their feathers on one or both wings. It is likely a small earthquake had disturbed them in the middle of the night. So now, instead of having one or two wing feathers growing back in as they should with a normal moult, they have a wingful or two of growing feathers. While they are growing in, these feathers have a blood supply and, if broken, can cause serious blood loss to the bird. The first aid recommendation for broken blood feathers is to pull out the feather in order to stop the bleeding.

I have no idea if the birds managed to do that to themselves or if the feathers just came out as a result of the panic in the cages. The evidence on the floor this morning shows that both of the hens lost at least three blood feathers last night, while the other red rumps lost one each. Meanwhile the other birds housed in adjacent cages showed no signs that they were bothered by the disturbance.