Ah don’t you just love the neighbours?

[sparkindarkness]

A drama that is retreating these past few weeks, but it seems I have been inexcusably giving my ever-so-delicate neighbour the vapours and fainting fits.

Because Mia, annoying visiting cat, is catching baby birds. yes, ‘twas that time of years when birds throw themselves out of their nest to fly or plummet. And if they plummeted, Mia was waiting. Bad Mia. No cookie.

The neighbour complained to me on multiple occasions. Bitterly, at length and sometimes tearfully. To which I sympathise, it isn’t nice to see the kitty pounce on the helpless baby bird. I wish it didn’t happen.

But being pounced on by a predator does tend to be the fate mother nature has chosen for the helpless baby birds who fall from their nests. And exactly what am I expected to do about it anyway? Convince Mia of the health benefits of a vegetarian diet? Eloquently persuade her the many merits of pacifism? Maybe get her a saffron robe and see if Buddhism is the path for her? She’s a CAT. Killing helpless baby birds is what cats DO.

Now, bowing to pressure, I have got her a collar with a bell on it. I hate these things and the minute the birds start flying away I’m taking it off her. My last cat had a collar and a bald ring round his neck where the collar had been all his life. And for an active cat climbing and sneaking and putting her head in everywhere, a collar that can get caught must be dangerous. Add to this the constant ringing is annoying ME, so what it must be doing to her super-sensitive hearing, I have no idea.

Of course, it didn’t help. Helpless baby birds that have fallen from their nests while learning how to fly are not especially able to run away from a cat no matter how much jingling said cat does.


So what to do - I want to take the collar off now the baby birds have either died or learned how to fly. The neighbour is still not happy. So, how do I stop Mia hunting short of locking her inside all day and should I just tell the neighbour to deal with it and stop being ridiculous?

Comments

[gnarlycranium.livejournal.com]

Domestic cats can decimate songbird populations and some other animals. Cities are much harder for wildlife to last in to begin with. Granted a lot of that damage is from cats gone feral, but still-- this is not nature.

Although, baby birds fallen from the nest are gonna die anyway.

[semiotic-pirate.livejournal.com]

It is true that domestic cats can decimate the populations of songbirds.

However, and sparky can correct me when I'm wrong: It sounds like Mia only goes after the baby birds that fall out or can't fly when they attempt to take off from the nest. So, she's being an opportunist, not actually hunting the birds... (Which is what I'm sure my cat would do if I allowed him to be an outdoor cat because he has shown behavior in play that makes me think he has caught things in midair flight and stuffed them right in his mouth with his paws during the "catch.") Also, it isn't specified if these are songbirds or some other bird that is more adapted to the city environment.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

There are song birds near us, but more starlings than anything that bully my poor blackbirds.

Mia will hunt ANY bird (except blackbirds. There was an incident where she tried to hunt a blackbird and the male blackbird took issue with her and kept diving at her. She won't touch them now), however, her ineptitude and habit of yowling at birds means she's rather unlikely to catch anything else.

[semiotic-pirate.livejournal.com]

Well... yeah. Good thing we aren't planning on getting Phoenix and Mia together then, he would teach her how to silently hunt.

Has the woman thought of making a barrier around the nesting areas or a platform beneath the nest so that if they fall out they don't fall to the ground where any predators can reach?

I hate to say this, and I may get attacked for saying it; much as I love songbirds, this is natural selection at work.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

No no no, that would be baasad. The neighbour would probably have fainting fits!

She doesn't have formal nesting areas, it's just all the trees round here.

it is, it really is

[gnarlycranium.livejournal.com]

If Mia is a healthy, live cat she will be hunting ANYTHING THAT MOVES.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Yup. Hunt, yes. Succeed. No :)

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Well, yes but at the same time any other predators a song bird may face are also absent in the city.

Sadly, round here song birds are vastly outnumbered and overwhelmed by the mobs of Starlings and the occasional seaguls. The blackbirds and sparrows are fighting a rearguard action but are badly outnumbered

Aye, I'm not saying Mias wouldn't hunt the others - but I don't think she has the skill

[gnarlycranium.livejournal.com]

Some predators are absent, but the cat population greatly outnumbers the wild predators anyway-- like what, bobcats? Snakes? Weasels or something? Peregrines? There just ain't much out there.

Starlings of course are noxious vermin also.

[gnarlycranium.livejournal.com]

And on top of the cats, there's the lack of food, dangerous traffic, lack of safe shelter, nasty chemicals everywhere, etc. In any halfway major city (in the US anyhow) you do not see ANY native birds-- only those nasty little flying-mouse brown sparrows, and pigeons.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Well there's loads of food for birds - rubbish, and no end of people feeding in them

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

not any more, sadly.