At least it's not lions and tigers and bears

but today was lizard and salamander and bird. Oh, my! There seems to be no end to what the cats (mostly Shadow) will bring in.

This morning I heard an awful ruckus at the cat door. I rushed outside, thinking it was another cat harassing our cats. Nothing out there. Hmmm. I come back inside to find Shadow with a good size bird in his mouth.

The bird got free. Oh crud. I'm envisioning the chase that ensued the last time a bird got loose in the house. At least it isn't freezing outside this time as I open the door.

Shadow made a very acrobatic leap and caught the bird again. It fluttered and he dropped it. It was faintly fluttering, but not moving. He just stared at it.

I got the dustpan and scooped up the bird. Halfway to the door, Shadow attacked the dustpan and retrieved "his" bird, with a look that said, "hey, that's MY bird. If you want a bird, go catch your own bird!"

Then he ignored the bird again, so I scooped it back up and put it, still in the dustpan, on the picnic table. It wasn't there when I checked later, so either it flew away, or, more likely, the cats took it off somewhere.

Later in the day I found both a lizard and a salamander - both still alive. I scooped them up and deposited them outside as well. At least they didn't leave a trail of feathers. Those downy little feathers are hard to sweep up - the air currents from sweeping them up causes the ones already in the dustpan to swirl out.