Mouse-Capades

For some time we've had a mouse visiting our bird feeder (see Recurring Mouse). And not just visiting, but hanging out inside the feeder. At first, we could see his tracks in the snow heading off towards the neighbors house. But then he must have decided to shorten his commute and the tracks started leading to our house. And then I started hearing him inside the wall. Not good. Only one solitary mouse so far but I was afraid where there was one, others would follow.

I could have hung the bird feeder away from the trunk of the tree so he couldn't reach it, but the birds throw so much seed on the ground he'd still have a constant supply of food.

So I bought a couple of live traps and put them on his route between the house and the bird feeder. I baited them with cheese. Mice can't resist cheese, right? Wrong. The traps kept getting triggered but never caught anything. So I switched to peanut butter. Still no luck.

I looked out the window last evening and there he was, inside the bird feeder, munching away. I grabbed a pillow case and headed out there. I figured I could pull the pillow case right over the bird feeder so when he jumped out I'd have him trapped. But the pillow case wasn't big enough to fit over the whole bird feeder. The poor mouse was running around inside the bird feeder. I felt bad for stressing him out. Usually he goes out the back of the bird feeder and runs down the trunk, so I had the pillow case over the back of the feeder. But he was too smart to fall for that. In desperation he jumped straight out the front of the feeder - right at my chest. This is one fearless mouse! He hit my chest, I jumped, and he took off, up inside the wall of our house. Round one goes to the mouse.

But in the end I guess he couldn't resist the peanut butter and when I came home from work today he was in one of the traps. I carried him a couple of blocks down to the river bank and let him go. Hopefully it's far enough away that he won't find his way back. It'll be a tough adjustment after having all the food you can eat. I wish him well, as long as he's not inside the walls of my house!