Death by Unnatural Predation
A cat’s meow broke through the quietude of my morning coffee on the patio.
The utterance was prolonged and sonorous. It resonated in a deeper and more powerful manner than I would expect to emanate from a mere Felis catus, aka common house cat. I estimated the mouser to be about 75 feet away, behind some trees and boulders, and beyond my line of sight. Outdoor cats are common in the oak woodland neighborhoods of the Sierra foothills where I live. There are plenty of gophers for them to hunt. I resumed my reading, and didn’t pay the occurrence any mind.
The next day, while walking under the canopy of my Blue Oaks, I came across curly wisps of downy feathers strewn across the ground. They were dappled with late December morning dew. Nearby, a collection of flight feathers grabbed my attention. I instantly understood what these feathers meant, yet, I wanted to deny the reality of the evidence I picked up and held in my hand.
My heart sank to my heels. These feathers were certainly the remains of a California Thrasher. Not just any thrasher, but one of the two I had been watching over the past several weeks. I intuitively knew which bird it was that had met his end by the merciless stealth of a neighbor’s fat and well-fed feline, whose meow now echoed in my ears.
My mind flashed back to the previous morning, and the sound that interrupted my peaceful reading on the patio. In retrospect, I realized that the meow I heard was not the entreating voice of a friendly pussycat rubbing itself against my leg. It was, unmistakably, a boastful roar, a prideful declaration of a successful hunt, and the extinction of the life of my winged neighbor who came to visit every day.
The truth of the plumes I held in my hand, notwithstanding, I maintained hope against hope that perhaps these feathers belonged to different species. A Northern Flicker, perhaps? Two flickers had been around recently. For all I cared at that moment, it could be any other bird, just not my thrasher. I didn’t know anyone who might have helped me out with identification, so I searched online feather catalogues, but to no avail. A few days later, when two thrashers appeared together on a perch, my hopes soared, if only briefly as it became clear to me that neither of these two birds was the feathered friend who I suspected the cat had eaten.
You are now, perhaps, wondering how I could tell one individual bird from another of the same species. They all look alike, don’t they? Without doubt, it is not an easy task. The answer to your question, though, lies in a quirky backstory which I will now relate.
It has become my passion to observe individual birds close at hand whenever possible in order to photograph them, as well as to understand their various behaviors. In this instance, my observations took place under fairly controlled circumstances: a very specific territory (my back yard), and a finite number of thrashers (two). Unlike the scrub jays and woodpeckers that are ubiquitous in the oak woodlands around me, thrashers are not as common here as they are in coastal and dense chaparral habitats.
These two thrashers were present almost every day from summer through fall. My property was clearly part of their territory They were a bonded pair, often foraging and singing together. They liked to sit atop a favorite perch from where they had a clear and expansive view of the woodland around them. Thick ground cover immediately below offered a rapid escape from danger, if necessary.
That perch - its location - was no accident. I made it using a heavy oak tree branch that had broken off during a winter storm. I set it up in a pre-determined location where I could easily photograph my avian neighbors close by from inside a tent photography blind.
The thrasher pair became habituated to my concealed presence. Not only that, they seemed curious about me, and the clicking sounds (i.e. the camera shutter) they heard whenever they moved about the perch while preening, fluffing feathers, and stretching their wings. Being late December, their courtship behaviors (male offering food, female raising tail and fluttering wings), especially, caused that clicking sound to occur.
Female California Thrasher courtship display
California Thrasher courtship behavior
That my two avian neighbors would be interested in the sounds I made is not all that surprising. Thrashers are related to mockingbirds, who, as you know, imitate the vocalizations of other birds in their habitat. Maybe my vocalizations would become part of their repertoire, I gleefully mused with a sly grin.
In similar fashion, I was equally fascinated by the vocalizations made by these two thrashers. This pair spoke to each other with songs of commitment, duets that were fabulously melodic, so much so that on one occasion I actually thought I was hearing human voices. I looked through the side window of my blind, thinking that my wife was outside, talking to a friend. That couldn’t be, I remembered; she wasn’t home. It had to be the birds.
Before you suggest I audition for a part in the movie, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, I heard what I heard. This thrasher pair must have been talking about me, maybe even talking to me, I reasoned. They knew I was there, a close twenty feet away, peering at them with a camera lens that stuck out of the tent’s mesh camouflage. were they trying to decipher the sound from my camera, to understand what that birdbrain of a human being in the big bird cage was saying to them?
It may be hard to believe what happened next, but picture this: there are two thrashers aligned on the perch. One thrasher jumps off, and races across the ground to the blind. After a moment of hesitation, it moves alongside the tent to the open, back side, and takes a peek at me. The inquisitive bird flits off in a flash, and disappears into the nearby ground foliage. It all happened in a nanosecond, and I could hardly believe my eyes. I kid you not.
Was it that ultra-curious, male thrasher who my neighbor’s cat devoured? Truly, I was deeply saddened by its demise. I made some quick notes about the event and the photographs I made that day, but several months passed before I could bring myself to write about this incident.
The remaining thrasher (I named her Joy) stopped appearing on the perch altogether three or four days later. Her absence deepened my feeling of loss. From time to time, I believe, she foraged briefly in my front yard, and occasionally perched next to another thrasher on a telephone wire down the street. I suspected this new individual was the thrasher that had appeared with Joy shortly after the cat predation.
With the onset of the new year, and lengthening daylight hours, the mating season for thrashers would begin. I had the sense that Joy had found refuge in a territory down the street, as well as a new male with whom she seemed to have bonded. I speculated she would surely produce at least one brood in the coming spring, and perhaps another a short time later.
Seven months later, in July, I was graced with a most extraordinary, heartwarming avian encounter. Decide for yourself if the happening was pure coincidence, or if it had been foretold.
I was reading by the good light of a living room window one quiet Sunday morning. The sound of a bird chirping interrupted the stillness of the moment. The vocalization was one I could not recall having heard before. It was loud, such that it caused me to scan the room from corner to corner, thinking that it was a bird inside the house. How could that have happened? I looked around, but saw no movement, anywhere. Could the bird be inside the ductwork?
California Thrasher fledgling at my doorstep
I sat up, listening more attentively now, and soon realized that the chirping was actually coming from outdoors. I grabbed my camera, and, with unbounded anticipation, I slowly opened the front door. There, before me, just a couple of feet away, stood a fledgling California Thrasher.
I fired off a quick shot for documentation, and then crouched down to compose another photo from eye level, hoping my tiny guest would not scurry away. No worries, though. That cherubic little bird took a hop towards me, and continued to chirp. I’d like to believe it was posing, but, in reality, I think it was begging for food. From me!
Moments later, the fledgling took a couple of hops along the walkway before suddenly scurrying off, its tail raised in the air, around the garage to the patio side of the house.
Simultaneously, I heard the calls of an adult thrasher who had been - unseen by me - observing the fledgling below from the peak of the roof. Was it she who made those loud chirps which interrupted my reading? In a flash, she scampered across the ridge tiles of the roof to the opposite side in hot pursuit of her sprightly offspring.
All was well in my life that morning … and for several days afterward.
I am averse to believing that this serendipitous episode came about by pure chance. Could the thrasher on the roof have been Joy, the female who, several months before, foraged daily on my property, and who sang duets with her mate before he met his end by the deadly stealth of a common house cat? Was it Joy who brought her offspring to my home for a purpose, and I, part of that purpose, was there to witness the fact?
Going to the back yard, I discovered, not one, but two fledglings begging for food. There, an attentive adult obliged them from time to time. The next morning, too. Likewise, for the following days, I was treated to a scene of energetic chirps mixed with multiple food exchanges.
Fledgling California Thrashers begging
A thrasher fledgling grows quickly, and will be soon on its own. Suspecting that I might have only a week or two, at most, to photograph this angelic begging behavior, I put all chores on hold. Mornings were the best time for observing this remarkable regeneration of life. Consequently, those were the hours when you would have found me inside my tent blind, with a clear view of my favorite perch.
Celebrate birds
Thrasher adult feeding fledgling
California Thrasher preening
Fledgling California Thrasher
Fledgling California Thrasher spreading its wings
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