Hey now, little mouse

[spatch]

I stayed up far too late playing Minecraft tonight. As I was getting ready to head off to bed, I heard a strange scrabbling sound behind me. There's a window behind and it's raining and windy, so obviously it was something brushing up against the window. Right?



Nope! It's a new friend! And he is one fearless little fellow. He's perched on the curtain rod directly behind me, watching me play. And he let me get very close with the camera.



Mr. The Cat spotted the mouse earlier this evening, but is still convinced it's hiding in the opposite corner of the room. He's also more interested in my breakfast on the desk than he is in the mouse (who, when I wasn't looking, managed to crawl across two curtain rods and one free-hanging curtain -- how did you do that, little mouse? -- to make it to the other side of the bay window.)



Now he's making friends with Gregor, the fellow who sits on ledge on the other side. Hi, you two! Can you get rid of the cobwebs while you're there?

I'd shoo the mouse out the door but A. it's rainy and B. it's windy and C. he'd find another way in anyway. He really isn't all that welcome a guest here and will soon have to go; right now his presence is more of a novelty than anything. I am guessing he'll eventually run afoul of the cat when he makes it back down on the ground, but I won't contemplate that scenario just now. I have some sleeping to do before I go to the dentist today.



Have a nice morning, little mouse!

Comments

[phonemonkey.livejournal.com]

Is that an escaped pet mouse? I didn't think that wild mice had so much colour contrast.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Ooooooooh! I'd let him stay for awhile, too. :-)

[tonysalieri.livejournal.com]

Like any mammalian lifeform possessing even the most rudamentary of intelligence, this mouse senses the sheer, weapons grade awesomeness of Minecraft, and holds those who follow in the Teachings Of The Prophet Notch in the highest of Awe...er...some...ness.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

I think you might be right. Wild mice dodge for cover and darkness, and don't hang out comfortably in plain sight, like this one is doing. I bet this fellow escaped and is enjoying a day out.

[oonh.livejournal.com]

scrabbling?
Squeak! "I have 'tranquil' on a triple word score!"

[minkrose]

I agree - the wild mice we had were grey-brown and very difficult to see. They also had much smaller eyes. Though they were pretty bold, I never could have taken pictures of them. I usually saw one running along the wall when I saw them at all.

Good Looker

[(Anonymous)]

I hate mice in the abstract, but I melt when face-to-face with something like this. Still, unless it's an escaped pet, where there's one mouse, there are usually more, so best to let Mr. The Cat get on the case ASAP, IMHO.

[smacaski.livejournal.com]

I was thinking the same thing--wild mice tend to blend in more (I keep thinking of the perfectly color-matched Park Street mice). This little fellow looks right out of a pet shop window.

Deer mouse

[(Anonymous)]

It's a wild mouse - most likely a deer mouse, to be specific. They have great big dark eyes and white bellies, just like your little pal. They can also share hantavirus (not so likely in this neck of the woods) and Lyme disease (which is a concern.)

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

So cute!! Based on how close he let you get and how not-scared he looks, I'd agree with the folks who think this is an escaped pet.

[joyeous.livejournal.com]

This whole post is disturbing to me on many levels.

It's wither a deer mouse or a white footed mouse

[(Anonymous)]

Closely related species and both are sometimes domesticated, but they far more typically occur in the wild. Like all wild mice species in NA, there is some risk of them carrying deer ticks (which themselves may carry lyme desease) and hantavirus. Humans and cats can both catch hanta from rodents, btw.

I hate to say it, but you are probably best off killing him. Sticky traps are less trouble for you, but nastier for him. Traditional spring traps are ickier for you, but mean a quick clean death for the wee beastie.

If you leave him in your house, you *will* regret it.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

According to UHub, it's a deer mouse, which would explain the contrasting fur. Break out the Have-a-Heart!

[jotasbrane.livejournal.com]

If it's as friendly as it sounds, a cracker in a shoebox (with holey lid) might be sufficient.

[bedfull-o-books.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was going to guess a field mouse.

http://www.biolib.cz/en/taxonimage/id3796/

So. Cute.

[grumqa.livejournal.com]

Fieldmice! Scoop up, bop on head.

Re: It's either a deer mouse or a white footed mouse

[bedfull-o-books.livejournal.com]

I was guessing field mouse....

Glue traps are evil, evil things. Spring trap or have a heart....

(My co-worker's boyfriend started keeping them as pets. It went way out of control. Separate cages, but there were dozens of them anyway.... It's like they knew, hey he puts you in a cage, but you get fed all you want....)

[bedfull-o-books.livejournal.com]

Hee!

Now that song is stuck in my head, thank-you-very-much....

[cheezdanish.livejournal.com]

I like this option.

[sarcasma.livejournal.com]

Good point!

Failing that, I got some amazing "guillotine" style traps (no chopping involved, just a much more rapid and forceful version of the classic spring trap) when I couldn't find have-a-heart traps anywhere in my city. They did a very efficient job (unlike glue traps, which, ack).

And yeah, most of the mice I've seen in my neck of the woods have looked a lot like this. Some were grey but many had the brown-and-white colouring and awfully cute ears. :(

[kissoflife.livejournal.com]

Very cute indeed! And I am fretting cuz I have some visitors again too. And the landlord will not be nice about this, I fear. But Cutey is being very cute! And mine never try to get above the floor, that I can detect. Cutey's got talent!

[luckimunki.livejournal.com]

It's very regrettable how cute indeed these mice can be, because they are horrible pests. He will get into your cupboards, eat half your food, and poop in the other half. Not to mention their disease-carrying potential.

At a nature center I used to work at, they did a little experiment one time. Every time they found a mouse, the live-trapped it, marked its fur with some non-toxic paint, and released it over a mile from the center. Soon enough, they were finding mice with paint on their fur back in the traps. Live-trapping and releasing far away will not rid you of the beasts, they will come back, incorrigible little buggers.

But gosh they are cute.

[dskasak.livejournal.com]

*clears throat, hums note in key of S*

[spatch]

Don't forget that it's Quite Fast.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

DON'T LET ABBIE KILL HIM!!!

You can let mousie loose in my yard. We have a garage he can winter-over in, with old furniture to burrow in and all the birdseed that falls from my feeder. Pleeeeeeeze no kill??

[spatch]

I think so too, but I really don't want to get on the Gooooooood Fairy's bad side. Tempting fate and all, don'tcha know.

[spatch]

He's a very clever mouse. I watched him climb across the vertical face of a curtain, and he stared down an unblinking camera eye. I'm sure he's the kind of mouse who'd continually get the 50-point rack clearing bonus.

[anotherjen.livejournal.com]

Do you really want a garage full of mouse poo?

(says the organizer who today has been discovering basement boxes full of mouse poo and belongings that had to be trashed)

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Oh, we don't care about mouse poo in our ratty garage. It's detached from the house, and we never use it except as a repository for crap we don't want but are too busy/lazy to dispose of properly, like monitors and furniture that's been destroyed by the cats. I don't mind if critters take shelter there.

Interestingly (and somewhat hypocritically), I once found aging evidence of a human squatter in there, and I was really upset. But the beasties I don't mind.

[anotherjen.livejournal.com]

Huh. Okay. I'd say it's going to make it much more unpleasant when you do finally dispose of all that crap, but I guess you won't mind as much as I might! Let's hope you don't find anything dead/rotting in there (critter or human).

[spatch]

Ugh. That's a rotten discovery. Did they also chew up a lot of your paper? I lost some books in a basement that way once and was mighty displeased.

[iheartoothecae.livejournal.com]

ZOMG YOU ARE ALL GOING TO DIE of cute

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peromyscus

[anotherjen.livejournal.com]

Oh, this wasn't my basement; it was an organizing client's basement. They haven't gotten into the books... yet. I think they camped out amongst the Easter/Valentine's Day stuff because it smelled like candy. (The client says there wasn't any actual candy in there.) But who knows what they're thinking. They were also in the art supplies.

No one should store anything in cardboard boxes in basements, ever.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Fortunately, our cats kill these things before I ever see them alive.

Usually. Sometimes... kitty wants to play.

[geekchik.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit late to this party, but we had one of these in my house about two weeks ago (close to Ball Square). Despite two cats, he/she managed to evade us until a spring trap was set. Then, it was only a matter of time.

Mouse?

[xojmo.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

I thought that was a hamster at first. He's so cute!! I wouldn't mind having him as a little friend!