Damsel and I did some yard chores this morning consisting of clean-up of a pile of cut-down bush branches we left for “later” a couple of weeks ago. We finished that and moved on to pruning some low-hanging foliage on the “Musical” mesquite tree out front. We also pruned some “suckers” from the citrus “orchard” (one orange, one lemon tree).
Later in the day, I was out by the orchard 😉 and spotted a young Curve Billed Thrasher that was caught in a net that Damsel has covering her little orange tree. The net was placed there precisely to keep critters out, but somehow, this little guy found his way in and tangled itself in the mesh.
I had my camera with me, but placed it on the ground to effect a release of the bird if I could, therefore no pix of the rescue, just the one above of a similar bird at our feeder I took earlier.
I reached under the net and got a grip on the bird; it didn’t like me doing so and squawked the whole time I gently held it while getting out my Sog knife to cut through some of the entangled netting. After a minute or so, I managed to free the bird which had minimal injury as far as I could tell. It flew a low trajectory to a nearby cholla where it perched.
I’m glad I found the little guy before one of the local predators did. Damsel and I discussed replacing the net with some wire screen mesh which is less likely to snare the critters.