Husky 5 — Birds 0

Just had a flurry of dog activity in the house.

My husky, closely followed by the malamute, went hooning around the dining table before crashing into and getting tangling in the vertical blinds by the back door. By the time I got there to untangle him, he’d buggered off to the depths of his kennel with whatever prize he’d managed to thieve.

The loose feathers and a small amount of blood at the scene of the crime, pretty much told me what his prize was. But it’s a tough call to identify bird remains at the back of the kennel when there’s a husky drooling on them and a malamute standing in the entrance blocking your view.

I had to wait half an hour until the little guy brought his bird out to the backyard. He laid beside it to tease the malamute. Turns out he’d scored another starling, which sets his tally at three starlings, a sparrow and a rather stupid noisy miner.

I’ve heard the sound of starling doom in the past. He waits until they leave their nest via the guttering, then he launches himself off the kennel roof and takes them out in mid air.

He must have stunned his latest victim and was forced to subdue it inside. Or, possibly, the malamute was laying in wait to claim his fluttery new toy and he was forced to evade her.

The sparrow was unfortunate enough to fly inside and get cornered in the kitchen. While the house humans were trying to open the kitchen window to shoo it outside, my husky solved the problem by catching and taking it outside himself.

The sparrow didn’t survive his rescue attempt.

The noisy miner was a fledgling. I was walking the little guy past a tree full of noisy miners. I spotted the fledgling sitting on a limb about a metre off the ground. I figured that all of the adult birds were telling it to get the hell out the way, but as the fledgling was going, Huh? What dog?, it was too late. My dog had grabbed it and walked off. He was a lead at the time too.

The dogs are always entertaining, but I could have done without having to clean bird bits off the vertical blinds.