Nature Update (7) - red in tooth and claw
May. 4th, 2021 05:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anna_wingThe latest sparrows have flown.
There was one young sparrow who kept fluttering down to the ground but not being able to fly up again. We suspect that it was pushed, since multiple attempts to return it to its nest (there are two, on either side of the air-conditioning unit) ended up with it back on the ground. It was unfortunately incapable of eating the rice that we offered it, and disappeared overnight, so we suspect that it was eaten by something. We are sad but unsurprised.
Bus-stop cat turns out to have a fungal infection on his skin, which accounts for the over-licking. The vet proffered anti-itch pills, anti-fungal powder, multivitamin pills and salmon oil. We got enough for Lap-cat as well, since his over-licking problem is perennial. Housekeeper's expertise luckily extends to pilling cats, and they are amenable to being powdered and brushed, so hopefully this will solve everyone's problems. Scaredy-cat appears to be asthmatic, which is incurable, but it doesn't appear to inconvenience him too much beyond alarming hacking-cough noises a couple of times a day.
We have acquired some pots of mint for tea, and are making sure to harvest the leaves regularly so that the plants don't suddenly bloom and die. I was used to mint being perennial (which it is, near the equator, I used to use it as a ground cover), and this unexpected turn to its life-cycle took me completely by surprise the first time.
There was one young sparrow who kept fluttering down to the ground but not being able to fly up again. We suspect that it was pushed, since multiple attempts to return it to its nest (there are two, on either side of the air-conditioning unit) ended up with it back on the ground. It was unfortunately incapable of eating the rice that we offered it, and disappeared overnight, so we suspect that it was eaten by something. We are sad but unsurprised.
Bus-stop cat turns out to have a fungal infection on his skin, which accounts for the over-licking. The vet proffered anti-itch pills, anti-fungal powder, multivitamin pills and salmon oil. We got enough for Lap-cat as well, since his over-licking problem is perennial. Housekeeper's expertise luckily extends to pilling cats, and they are amenable to being powdered and brushed, so hopefully this will solve everyone's problems. Scaredy-cat appears to be asthmatic, which is incurable, but it doesn't appear to inconvenience him too much beyond alarming hacking-cough noises a couple of times a day.
We have acquired some pots of mint for tea, and are making sure to harvest the leaves regularly so that the plants don't suddenly bloom and die. I was used to mint being perennial (which it is, near the equator, I used to use it as a ground cover), and this unexpected turn to its life-cycle took me completely by surprise the first time.
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Date: 2021-05-04 11:02 am (UTC)Thank goodness. I've heard that it's very challenging to give meds to cats.
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Date: 2021-05-07 04:18 am (UTC)The anti-itch pills needed effort, but luckily the multivitamins appear to be coated in something tasty, since when added to the bowl they are happy to eat it on their own...
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Date: 2021-05-07 10:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-05-04 02:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-05-05 08:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-05-04 04:16 pm (UTC)Some mints are for sure a perennial here in Canada. Can't get rid of the stuff. But I'm not sure if our kind flowers.
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Date: 2021-05-04 08:33 pm (UTC)Huh! We had a patch of mint in the house I grew up in (42° North) and it came back every year as leaves without anyone having to do anything about it. I don't even think my family had planted it; I think we inherited it with the chives and the grape arbor.