A Mouse Slayer Becomes Part of the Family

We moved into our house, built in 1913, six years ago. I didn't notice the mice families that made my home their home until the winter of our first year here. They decimated a box of Red River cereal that had fallen in a back cupboard.

This sad, sick mouse sat here in the kitchen for Madi's viewing pleasure.

Mice are curious creatures. They feature strongly in christmas carols (it was the night before christmas/and all through the house/not a creature was stirring/not even a mouse), poems (Of Mice and Men's title was a line taken from an 18th century ode to a mouse family who'd nest was tilled), and films(ahh, sweet Stuart Little). They are kinda cute for a rodent. You also have to respect the house mouse's resiliency. They can enter a space the diameter of a pencil and are always willing to try new foods.

Much of their resiliency is surely due to their capacity to breed. Five to 6 young are born 3 weeks after mating and they become sexually active from 6 to 10 weeks old. So, not theoretically, females could have 6 litters per year equalling 36 new mice. Half of them then go about breeding just like their mamas.  

Of course if I were looking for a house now, I'd notice the 'mouse' signs: the steel wool around entrances and jammed around plumbing, the baseboard joints with slightly curved exits, the black poison boxes tucked behind furniture. Controls in our home has also included traps but I can't do the sticky paper! Sometimes I feel that our mice have become super-evolved. They are complacent about peanut butter, and have worked out how to steal chocolate without setting off the traps. They are ambivilent to the poison (and I'm squeamish about putting it out).

But two weeks ago I snapped. On two separate nights I heard the familiar scratching of a soon-to-be mama mouse tearing off the insulation from the ceiling tiles to use for her nest. The thought of more babies made be set aside my peevishness about cleaning litter boxes, cat hair on my clothes, dead mice at my door and itchy excema... I went out and got me a mouse slayer.  

What's worse? Dead dried mice in my walls or dead mice as presents on my bed side. Its a draw. 

Dubbed Biscuit by the three year old in the house, this mouse slayer hangs out in the basement's joists- choice mouse highways. In fact, one morning last week we awoke to find ceiling tiles on the floor. He'd fell from the roof in his hunt for choice morsels.

He's introduced my kids to the animal world's gladiator fight style.  This has brought up interesting questions for me. I want to shield my kids from the truth of what animals do to other animals. I also don't want to see it myself. Mice have brought the 'wild' into my house. And, like usual, I don't want to face the natural world unless its on my own terms. Like meat which I prefer to buy in a clean, non-animal-looking bundle on styrofoam, I want the benefits without the (necessary) 'gore' and 'mess' of the natural world.  I suppose this is one of the many perks of being at the top of the food chain: we can lie to ourselves then construct realities to confirm these stories. This cat, so languid and social, is teaching me a lot of about my own foibles regarding my role in the natural order of things.

Philosophical ramblings aside... our cat is an unrepentant mouse slayer. The mice are finally running scared.

Birds! Not the Right Kind...

When I received Mom’s call, I was reveling in my backyard that overnight had become, on casual observation, a bird sanctuary. 

“Carissa? Just got off the internet. I was trying to identify the birds that have started eating at my feeder and it turns out that most of them are House Sparrows… (Pause)... it’s awful. They seem so sweet, but you have got to read some of these anecdotes.”

She went on to describe a bird that could kindly be called a bully.  The one site dedicated to propagation of Mountain Blue Birds describes them as follows:

“You might think they're cute (some blue birders refer to them as "rats with wings"), but they attack and kill adult bluebirds, sometimes trapping and decapitating them in the nestbox and building their own nest on top of the corpse. They destroy eggs and young. At a minimum, they often harass native birds (especially more timid species like chickadees) into abandoning nestboxes.”

The site went on to show some pretty graphic photos of ‘the circle of life’.

Anxious, I went to identify the birds swarming my newly acquired feeder and it turns out my bird sanctuary is made up of House Sparrow too (plus the odd magpie). Here I thought I was helping my urban landscape ‘return to its roots’.  I want to encourage a natural, balanced habitat consisting of plants AND animals. Have I instead been helping one of the bullies of Birdland Edmonton get easy food and further propagate itself to the great expense of other species?

In addition, I noticed they’re eating my spinach and peas!

What to do?  I want to increase the number of birds in my yard. They eat insects, often will eat weed seeds, and enhance my morning coffee ritual.

John Janzen Nature Centre assured me that in Edmonton there are other species that compete with the House Sparrow, such as the native Finch, and so help control their numbers.  However the Wild Bird General Store hotline confirmed that the House Sparrow here in Edmonton has been harmful to native species such as house wrens, chickadees, and tree swallows. The gentleman recommended that birdhouses be monitored well to ensure house sparrows were not allowed to propagate.  "If unchecked, a breeding pair can grow to over 2,000 birds in two to three years." (Bird Barrier America, Inc.)

After researching this, I’ve decided that I want other species of birds at my feeder but I don’t want to further encourage the House Sparrows.  Here are some things that I’m going to try…

-       Change to feed without millet or cracked corn- instead switch to black oil sunflower. Thistle and safflower

-       Buy a Magic Halo for the feeder

-       Buy vertical feeders without perches (the man I spoke to at the Wild Bird General Store said these were the only thing to work for him).

If none of the above work, I’ll remove the feeder.  

One positive thing I've discovered through this process is the existence of the helpful House Wren. One woman writes, “Observers whose patience exceeds mine have counted over 1000 feedings to a house wren brood in one day.” These feedings consist of aphids, caterpillars, grasshoppers, and moths. Since the Wren only needs a 1” diameter hole for its house, one doesn’t have to worry about Sparrows invading, as they need at least a 1 and 1/8” hole.

As for an update on my square foot gardens, my veggies are growing and the sparrows and I are harvesting spinach. I now have a bobble head owl overseeing the squares, just until the peas grow larger and my spinach bolts!

P.S. Here are some of the resources I used:

-John Janzen Nature Centre- 780-442-1443

- Wild Bird General Store- 1-800-465-5099

- A resource for Blue bird Lovers- www.sialis.org/hosp.ht

-A resource for encouraging House Wrens- http://www.birdwatching.com/stories/house_wren.html