Wednesday, July 16, 2008

The Demise of Henrietta????


At last I'm back!

But sadly, it seems that Henrietta is not. She has been missing for a week now. The last time I heard anything of her was about a week ago at around ten at night. I was at the computer and had the den door open. I suddenly heard a short squawk from Henrietta and then a loud clap/bang kind of noise. It sounded a bit like a wooden box slamming shut. I've stopped running outside to see what has happened since I can't do anything to help her so I just let it go. But I haven't seen or heard anything of her since. Moth assures me that he hasn't done anything to trap her-- and I believe him, because he honestly didn't know what to do to get rid of her (anything humane that is!). We've decided that perhaps an owl got her and what I heard was the clap of wings. We have a couple of big ones around.

The other possibility is this: In the past two weeks the grand parents of the children next door (to whom Henrietta really belonged) came up from Mexico. We have seen them cleaning up the yard and driveway, so perhaps they set a trap for her and have now reclaimed her -- which is certainly fine with us, especially Moth!

HOWEVER...we have found no sign of feathers anywhere, except in the two places she liked to hang out sometimes, but when Moth was cleaning up the yard today he found these.....











.

..in an old wooden planter that had some plastic bags in it. So if she has gone, she has left us a legacy. No, we're not going to eat them! We have no idea how long they've been there and the weather has been hot!

But please note, there was not a single feather to be seen anywhere around. So maybe she will surprise us and come strutting out of the bushes one day soon. We shall see.
(Never let it be said, but the truth is, I miss her!!!)


12 comments:

mrsnesbitt said...

Oh dear Chris, I know how upsetting stuff like this is.

Hugs.
Dxx

Betty F said...

Oh Chris, I hope she's ok. I'm glad you're back. I've missed you!

kaybee said...

Maybe you could incubate the eggs, and have four of Henrietta's offspring running around! MOTH would love that! (Harry, Hortense, Hilda and Hazel) And you would have so much 'fodder' for many more blogs! (sorry my imagination is running away with me!)

Jose said...

Poor, poor Henrietta. I just hope she didn't become someones delicious chicken stew.

Oh, by the way WELCOME BACK!

Wanda said...

Oh my goodness, Chris ~~ what a story Henrietta has told us...I'm so sad to see it end, but 4 lovely eggs....she was thinking about you....Maybe she's going back to Mexico....??

Glad you are back...missed you.

claude said...

Poor Henrietta !

J. Andrew Lockhart said...

strange indeed! any news?

Dave said...

Sometimes its the not knowing thats hard, but as you say she may well surprise you. Cats when they get very old often do a similar thing.
Thanks for visiting and commenting, I have just read your profile and the website, and you have certainly packed a lot in. Cheers.

Rune Eide said...

What a pity - you don't have any foxes around?

PS Thank you for the nice comment. In the "old days" we were taught UK English and I have tried to keep that up, although it is difficult these days. One tip for blogging etc.: I use Mozilla Firefox as a browser and they have a dictionary as a plug-in where you can choose almost any language you like, including many varieties of English .

Anonymous said...

Is there a fox nearby?

Abraham Lincoln
—Brookville Daily Photo

Shammickite said...

Poor Henrietta... I hope she's OK, and hasn't ended up being dinner for someone or something.

ChrisJ said...

Thank you all for your concern. I find it hard to believe she ended up as someone's dinner. There are no signs of feathers anywhere and I doubt she would have gone without a fight. I didn't think about foxes though, mainly because I didn't think we had any in San Diego County, but apparently we do, including a tree fox. I have never seen any around here. I have seen red foxes in England and grey foxes in Argentina but the most likely thing we have around here are owls and coyotes. The latter we see plenty of.