Having watched my five juvenile Zebras getting a bit big for their birdie britches, I decided that the ringleader - the biggest and most aggressive of the five youngsters - had to be moved into the adolescent cage with his older siblings from the previous clutch. Hopefully, I reasoned, this might give mom and dad some peace from the constant chore of policing their delinquent son.

As I resolutely faced the nesting cage with my homemade net, I recalled the general mayhem and trauma of my previous bird roundups, and resolved that there had to be a better way. I retired the net to it's drawer, and paced for some time considering my options. Not many had presenting themselves to me, when suddenly inspiration hit.

The answer was a spring-loaded trap cage. Just like they taught us to make in Boy Scouts to humanely trap small game before bashing it with a stick and skinning it.

In short order I had building materials and cutting implements strewn across the kitchen as my fiancee rolled her eyes and attempted to fix dinner amidst the carnage of yet another impromtu construction project. Her patience is apparently limitless.

Before too long, I proudly produced a fine rectangular trap made of the same wire mesh which housed the cramped little family. At one end I had rigged a hinged door held fast with the fattest rubber band I could find, being a firm believer in the "More Power" philosophy of Tim Allen. THAT, I assured myself, would guarantee that the trap was sprung with efficiency and finality.

I placed the trap in the breeding cage, propped the cage door open with a stick and string, and baited the trap with an irresistible variety of freshly sprouted seed.

After two solid hours I sat dumbfounded holding the string slack in my hands and my rear end protesting from sitting unmoving in a hard wooden chair. Every bird in the cage had visited the trap, except of course for the delinquent.

He was busily chasing and nipping everyone and in turn being chased by pops. He had investigated the cage thoroughly from every aspect, excepting the interior, and found great sport in attacking the rubber band, tugging with such force that his entire body would lift off the ground as he vainly tried to loose it from the door.

My mind had been wandering for some time, and mom was contentedly grazing at the sprouts inside while her offspring explored the new contraption with microscopic thoroughness. With a start I realized that the youngest female was perched atop the trap door as she pecked and yanked at the stick holding it open. As I jumped to shoo her away, she gave one tremendous yank, and the stick jumped it's notch. To my eye, everything happened in slow motion, but for the little girl on the door, there was nothing slow about it.

The stick flew violently to the side as the straining rubber band sinched with horrific force, snapping the door shut with the bird perched ignorantly on its edge like a trapeze artist on the edge of a catapult.

With a squawk, she was launched forward and upside down across the cage, impacting the wire on the opposite side as she vainly buzzed her wings to gain control. My fears that she may have broken a wing or her tiny neck were instantly allayed by her mad, frightened dash back and forth in the cage, desperately fleeing she knew not what.

The terrified little chirp then zipped into the baby's half-nest and flattened herself against the floor with her terrified eyes sky bound and big as saucers, still convinced she was under attack by some malignant yet unidentified source. I thought that she would stay that way for days, but within ten minutes she was happily sprinting about with her brothers and sisters, none the worse for the wear.

I, however, was to be rattled for several more hours to come.

Article © Mr. Bill 2002