False Alarm

Last night we had CB and Foehn in for playtime. As has been the case lately, they spent most of their time in the pouch, finally emerging and hour or so after we brought them in the office and gave them mealworms. Last night they emerged about 10:30 or so and spent some time running around. Things got quiet after awhile and I figured it was time to get them back to the cage and bring Rossby and Sprite in. Foehn was settled into a plastic container that they like to climb in and out of. Normally CB is in there with her, but not this time. I looked around for him a bit, then decided to put Foehn in the cage and come back to fetch CB.

Usually CB will come out when I shake the pouch (the zipper rattles), but last night there was no response. I got the flashlight and thoroughly checked out the room, looking behind, in, and underneath anything he could climb into. No CB. I looked everywhere one more time and he was nowhere to be found.  The only time he could have escaped is when M cracked open  the door to let me know their food was in the cage. They are fast and on more than one occasion have gotten by us without being noticed. I went and told M (she was just getting ready to turn in), and she came out to help with the search. Unfortunately doors were open to all rooms, including our outdoor screen room.

With flashlights in hand we checked his usual haunts and neither saw or heard him. M checked the office again. We decided to lay out pouches in each room hoping he would climb in if he came across it. We set a live trap in the basement with food on the chance he went down there (he would not be able to climb up the stairs). I told M to go to bed. I still had to take Rossby and Sprite out and give them their mealworms and some play time.I figured I would stay up as long as possible and make "rounds" of the rooms periodically to see if CB had found one of the pouches. He would be easier to find once he was up and active as opposed to sleeping in some corner.

M went out to the screen room one last time to look around and I fetched Rossby and Sprite. They jumped to their tree once we were in the office and I started to give them their mealworms. There was a scratching sound over by the computer, but since Sprite likes to take a few runs around the room before her mealworms I didn't think much of it until I noticed they were both on the tree.  There was movement underneath a pouch I had dropped there to the right of the computer, and a moment later there was CB! I gave Rossby and Sprite each a mealworm to keep them occupied, then gathered up CB and took him to the cage.

We don't know where he was hiding for sure, but M thinks he may have crawled into a pencil cup on the computer table which neither of us bothered to check. We were just glad he wasn't running around the house. It could have been a very,very long night.