Dust Ball ... or Dead Bird?

"Watch out when you walk over there," the wife warned, pointing out something brown and roly on the pathway between two rows of rose bushes, "There's a dead bird on the ground."

We were at the Louis Benoist Gardens checking out the beautiful crop of roses (we do this every time we visit San Diego's Almaden Winery Neighborhood Park).

So what did I do? I immediately went over to see what she was talking about. It looked more like a dead mouse than a dead bird, although there were some feathers protruding from the brown mass.

Actually, I told the wife, it looked like a four-inch long dust ball. Y'know, some blades of grass, maybe slender twigs, blown around by the wind, gathering things as it rolled around on the ground. Things such as dead leaves, dust, dirt, bird feathers.

I gave it a nudge with my toe and it was soft with quite a bit of give. I think it was a dust ball. The wife, on the other hand, kept looking the other way.

So what do YOU think? Dust ball ... or dead bird?