MOUSE MURDERER
Although I might have had a better view of the nest by stepping on the bank, 1 didn't do so, because bird-nesting boys study the signs in the hedgerow grass as much.as anything else, and the nest would have been plundered before long. To make a track to a nest is a fatal mistake, and I was content to lean over and look in. The hedgesparrow didn't mind, and my inspection continued until the eggs hatched. I saw the nestlings when they were quite helpless, but the following day the nest was empty. I might have looked for tracks or the sign of a hunting cat had
I not come upon the scene at a moment when a mouse was visiting it. He had either eaten the young or had been attracted by the scent. The fate of the hcdgesparrows was apparently the same as the brood that vanished from the nest in the thick bush at the top of my garden a year or two ago. One often lists predators, thinking of jays, crows, owls, rats, stoats and weasels, etc., but forgetting the smaller creatures every bit as eager for blood.
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