While eating my lunch today, I happened to look out the back glass door into the yard, and I saw a scene of destruction.  So I went outside and looked closer.

Someone, or something, had tipped over the birdbath, draining all the water and knocking over the stand.  The blue float rested some distance away.  Here’s the scene of the crime from a different angle.

Whoever did this did not leave a trace behind.  No footprints on the pavers, no sign of who it might have been.  However, I cast my mind back to the previous few weeks, and I remembered that we have seen a new visitor to our yard recently, who we have never seen in the previous 20 years of living here.  There are a couple of large crows who have been visiting the yard, and trying to eat from the hot-pepper suet feeder.  They are really too heavy for either feeder, and have knocked the suet basket off more than once.  So my guess is that one of those big crows tried to get a drink, and since the water level was low, simply tipped over the birdbath, thus draining all the water so he couldn’t drink!

Of course, I went out, righted the stand, cleaned off the bowl and the float, and filled it back up with clean, fresh water.  Here’s how it looks now.

And while I was finishing up, I heard a noise behind me, turned around, and captured a visitor.

The male junco’s mate was bopping around under the Japanese Maple tree.

So, the backyard crime ended well after all.