Birds

One of the cats brought in a baby blackbird yesterday morning. I was sleeping at the time, but was told the tale by mom, who woke me up shortly after clutching the baby bird in her hands and calling for help.
Apparently, the cat brought the bird in, and it was still very much alive. What's more, it was screaming at the top of its lungs, so loudly that mom at first thought it was a car or house alarm somewhere. Then she noticed it was coming from the stairs, so she went to look. The baby bird was sitting there, screaming, and the cat was staring at it and looking baffled.
So we rescued the bird, of course. Put it in a box, and by the afternoon it was feeling well enough to scream whenever it wanted to be fed (we're feeding it cat food, dissolved in water... the adult blackbirds seem to like it well enough, they're constantly stealing it from the cats' bowl), and to try to run away. It somehow freed itself from the box, and half ran, half flew away... right towards one of the cats. When I managed to get to it and rescue it, it was screaming at the top of its lungs, and the cat was staring at it and looking baffled. Again.
It's obviously feeling fine, or it wouldn't be this active. If there weren't any cats around, we would be freeing it so its mom (we've seen her around) could take care of it. But there's our three cats, plus half a dozen more belonging to various neighbors (I don't know the exact number, I lost count long ago), plus one or two dozen strays. It wouldn't last two hours.
Right now we're keeping it in a large cage that belonged to our canaries (when we still kept canaries and not cats). We're planning on taking care of it until it's grown enough that it can fly, so hopefully the cats won't catch it when it's freed. Anybody have a better idea?

¤ June 23, 2003 04:30 PM ¤

Comments

Ahr.

I have to deal with this kind of thing on a daily basis due to the evil that is Neko being an incredibly proficent hunter even with a gigantic bell strapped round her neck to warn the wee beasties when she is around.

She doesn't seem to have learned how to kill them before bringing them in so inevatibly we will end up with live rodents running around in the kitchen and hiding in under the cupboards.

They are at their hunting peak when they hit the age of 2 so you can probably expect several offerings a week at least depending on how big the local rodent and bird population is.

Posted by: sp4f at June 23, 2003 07:46 PM