Who's Been Eating My Nasturtiums?

     After all the hard work planting flowers, everything has been starting to look really good around the garden, but lately something fishy has been goin' on.  Each morning one or two more large leaves of the nasturtium plants have been found lying beside the spindly stock, now having to regenerate more leaves.  Nothing eaten, simply chewed off.  Those mice are at it again!
     Meanwhile, Gunner, our dominant little Top Gun hummingbird has been on fierce patrol.  He watches from morning until night, ready to spring into action.  Occasionally his anger will be provoked by any other bird that merely moves or chirps in the wrong fashion. 
     So after noticing our hard work being chewed off and discarded for no reason, action needed to be taken.  I pulled out the mouse traps!  No one messes with my plants, and no one messes with a hummingbird flower.  For those that are unaware of my specialty skills, they include catching mice like nobody's business, and making hot dog buns fresh from scratch.  How are these two things related, you might ask?  I was forced to sacrifice a small piece of hot dog bun for the mousetraps, and that doesn't make me very happy!  So, I lined up three snapping mousetraps, side by side.  I broke that scrumptious hot dog bun morsel into three even pieces, and forced each moist little morsel into the little claw on the trigger of the mousetrap.  For those that have a mouse problem, NOTHING works better for catching mice than fresh or stale bread that's been moistened with a few drops of water.  Don't mess around with cheese or peanut butter, or anything else, JUST BREAD!  It works like nothing else!  Anyways, back to my anger issues.  I had three traps lined up and loaded with fresh bread, and I began the delicate process of setting the triggers, kinda like doing open heart surgery.  My anger for those mice was high level, as were my nerves, as I performed the procedure of setting hair trigger traps.  One trap complete! Two traps complete, and only one to go.  My hands began to shake, and the sweat ran down my brow.  " Hold it together man, you only have one remaining"!  With my hands shaking and my nerves twitchy, I loaded up the spring on the final trap, ready to set the trigger.  It was then that an intruding hummingbird entered into Gunner's airspace.  Now, if you've ever heard two hummingbirds at high speed change direction really quickly, it's like a powerful whistle or screech of a jet at mach speed.  So as I was setting the trigger on the trap, with ultra sensitive nerves, Gunner and the intruder performed the high tech maneuver within inches of my head!  That whistle from their quivering feathers screeched pass me so fast, and with such a piercing whistle, that I tensed up with the loaded trap in my hand, and two loaded right next to it.  It's not like my life passed before my eyes, but it was like a vision of missing digits did.  My wife laughed, while I needed some serious time to wind down.  I'm happy to say that all my fingers remain intact, and Gunner has been warned of his fancy air maneuvers.  
​Image is of Gunner, our adult male Ruby-throat hummingbird keeping guard over his garden and territory. 
N.E. of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. June 20, 2020. 
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Wet feathers after a morning bath.

High up in the Poplar tree keeping guard