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attracting the mammalian predator to the feeder so near the robin nest?
Opossums are omnivorous mammals; they will eat anything though they are not known killers. I know they eat bird eggs and newly hatched young. My books tell me that.
I don’t think the opossum killed the brooding female. A raccoon or a cat is a more likely candidate. I have frequently seen a great orange cat skulking around the yard and assume it is the pet left behind when a neighbor moved away. I was told that by another neighbor who deplored the negligence of the now-gone lady.
A cat could have easily caught and killed the sleeping robin. Feral cats — those living off wildlife — do great damage to bird populations. Cats are unnatural predators; raccoons are a natural part of the world in which robins nest and raise their young.
“Don’t confuse the fact of predation with the effect of predation,” wrote Dr. Clarence Cottam, a great conservationist and authority on wildlife. This man saved Padre Island in Texas from commercial development. He also saved the six remaining whooping cranes from the finality of extinction in the early 1960’s when the U.S. Air Force decided to test night flares for bombing practice on their winter grounds at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in south Texas.
He pulled political strings and halted the tests. He was a great man.
Dr. Cottam’s words extended my understanding of the dynamics of wildlife populations those many years ago. I took no comfort in them this morning when I viewed the ruin of the robin nest. Maybe I will view this calamity with more detachment as the day wears on. I don’t count on it.
When I was slipping into sleep last night, I happily matched words into sentences as a preliminary to writing this morning of my excitement in observing the robin and her hatching young. Instead, I have written of destruction. Or should I say predation? Have I confused “the fact of predation with the effect of predation?”
Write John Trott at: P.O. Box 59, Washington, Va., 22747.
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