snack time

Looks cute doesn't it. A tiny adorable little ball of fur, cutely stuffing its face.
Now, imagine that it is not peanuts but babies stuffed into its fat little cheeks, bird babies. These maniacal little fiends are devastating the junco (my songbird study species) population this year. Roughly 80% of the nests we manage to locate are eaten before they are old enough to leave the nest. This is usually, but not always, due to chipmunks. Not only is this tough on the juncos, trying over and over again to get a batch of young to independence before they are munched like beer nuts, but it is also tough on the poor, hard-working junco researchers that slave for hours and hours in the field to find these nests for our research. This is just the way it goes though if you study a tasty animal. Juncos are great because they are common and plentiful, but for that same reason there are plenty of other animals out there doing their part to keep the population from exploding out of control. These things go in multiyear cycles. About every five years or so there is a good crop of acorns, which allows a lot of rodents to make it through the winter. The following summer there are rodents everywhere, eating everything. This is one of those years. Lucky me, I get to be here to see it.