SPRING IN CHICAGO

Whew! That was a long breather from this blog. Here is the latest spring roundup (not many migrants in the bunch, but I'm enjoying the raptors):

1 COOPER'S HAWK
1 RED-TAILED HAWK
1 MERLIN
2 KESTRELS
2 AMERICAN GOLDFINCHES
1 BLACK-CAPPED CHICKADEE

A strange urban wildlife phenomenon: I've seen this red-tailed hawk twice in close proximity to our house in the past week and a half: once it dove in to the alley as i pulled out of the garage on my way to drop baby at the sitter's, and once it alighted on the tree just in front. I pondered it sitting on a branch: what is so attractive about our house?

That afternoon, Stella the cat killed her first mouse.

This was actually the third mouse we've seen in our apartment. The cat left it charmingly on the baby's toy mat, where the baby's dad found it while holding baby, upon which the cat threw herself into a tumbling, roly poly fit of joyful purring. So much for the toy mat.

Horrified, I put mousie in the dumpster out back.

And returned to find the cats chasing another mouse.

This time, the BF managed to get the cat to hold the mouse in her jaws, open the door, hold cat aloft outside over the back deck, and release the mouse to the ground below and to relative safety. Phew.

But, wait--WAS it relatively safe out there? Or did we abandon poor mouselet to an even gruesomer fate: being torn apart and eaten by a raptor? Perhaps the spate of mouse sightings in our apartment has more to do with the raptor migration arriving in town and that big guy haunting our little abode.

Don't quite know what to do about this one. Baby will be crawling soon, so spring-loaded mousetraps and poison are both out of the question. Any thoughts out there as to a humane way to solve our rodent conundrum?