Baby visitors

Word has obviously got around that we are animal lovers ... we normally have several animal visitors to our garden but this weekend we have had a couple who would not or could not leave.

Saturday, visitor number one: Baby wood pigeon ... the cats found it sitting very quietly by the garden bench ... they haven't seen one this quiet so they both just sat there staring at it ... God knows how long this had gone on before Cream noticed. So we brought the cats in and left the pigeon there hoping that its parents would come along pretty soon to take it away. After six hours of the pigeon strolling around the garden and no sight of it's parents we decided to take a closer look ... It's beginning to get dark and I'm concerned about the other cats in the area and the local fox. It's crop looked infected and was weeping so we rang the vets and they asked us to bring it in.

Sunday, visitor number two: Baby field mouse ... now this poor blighter may not have had much of a choice about its visit. Pav bought it in to us, holding it very carefully in her mouth. Now normally I just release them back to the wild after a couple of hours of warm recuperation to avoid them going into shock. But this one was covered in fly eggs and hadn't even opened its eyes yet and without knowing where Pav picked it up from, I felt it unfair to let it cope on it's own. It has now been cleaned and set up with a very warm box in the shed, with shredded paper and toilet tissue as a bed.

Am afraid to go back into the garden for fear of finding something else!!