The Excitement Around Here

Not terribly exciting, perhaps, but certainly a change of pace. Cats have more sense than humans, sometimes. I'd been ignoring an odd noise I couldn't identify (windy outside, whatever). But Hobbes kept prowling around the fireplace, contrary to habit. And there was a red-shafted flicker, clinging to the inside of the chimney. What possessed him to investigate such a place, I can't imagine. But there he sat, a little sooty, blinking at me. After some skirmishing around with a "net" bodged together from a broomstick, an old lingerie-washing bag, a wire coat hanger, and lots of duct tape, I managed to spook him high enough that he figured out where the exit was.

I adore flickers. Their swooping flight, the black half-moon on their breasts, their galaxy of strange calls, the orange beneath their wings and the fire in their quills, their apparent joie de vivre in drumming on the metal drainpipes of the neighborhood. I'm glad this one got out ok.