Enter through the Dead Horse

This is Bob. More accurately, it's what's left of Bob, and the tweeties have selected him for this year's nest. I don't have any ideas what type of bird is trying to nest here, so I have used the ubiquitous "tweetie" as we did during hunting season to distinguish every bird that wasn't a quail or a dove...or a hawk, eagle or buzzard.

Bob was a little, brown rope horse that came to us from Arizona, and died one day in the middle of the roping pen just after completing a run. Luke took his rope off the steer, turned to walk back, and Bob simply fell out from under him and lay dead on the ground. We would never bother with an autopsy on the ranch. Dead is dead after all, and in fact, we just got the tractor and drug him to the back of the horse pasture, but we think it was probably a heart attack or something like that.

Any-hoo, I collect stuff like this, and after some months, went and collected parts of Bob that the coyotes left behind, and his skull now hangs on my house. Is that weird? I don't care, but sometimes I wonder...

This stuff is testament to how hard the tweeties have been working on their nest. Compared to what is actually inside the Bob-nest, this is a lot of stuff. Apparently it takes 10 times as much material to build a nest than what comprises the final product. The tweeties should apply for a military contract, or a home loan modification, because there's an awful lot of wasted motion in those endeavors as well.

Here we see why this nest is doomed to fail. It's about 3 feet from my oft-used back door. I must have been out working dogs, or away at the Deer Creek dog trial, or somewhere when they chose this unlikely spot, because it's noisy, and it's busy. I heard somewhere that 50% of nests fail each year, and I am definitely counting this one among them.

In 4 years of living in my home, I probably have used the front door fewer than 20 times. Maybe Bob should contact relocation in the best interest of the tweeties.

This is what's left of Shotgun. Shotgun was the location of 2 failed tweetie nests last year. Each eye socket held a nest, and each tweetie got as far as laying eggs, before abandoning the nests. Shotgun hangs beside my oft-used garage door, and you can imagine how noisy that gets!

Unlike Bob, as confirmed by the tiny hole just left of his mid-line, Shotgun did not die of natural causes. He was an unmerchantable steer that we doctored to good health over months and months, then put in the freezer. My then 10 year old daughter was tasked with feeding and watering him, and so gave him his name.

There are several handmade bird houses scattered in private locations all over my property, but the tweeties have never used them. Maybe I should commission one in the likeness of a dead animal...