Cat killing baby birds

I've got a very useful square sided see through plastic box that used to have chocolates in Tegan which is ideal for frogs or mice. As long as you can steer them away from tiny gaps they can sqeeze under you can generally get them into the box eventually.

I once found one of the cats throwing a baby frog around. It was quite limp and dead looking, with bits sort of hanging off it so I threw it in the pedal bin. Half an hour later I went to throw something else away and found a very lively baby frog, with all its limbs intact, bouncing around trying to get out

Cats kill because they are carnivores. They hunt because that's what they have always had to do to survive. I think they probably do enjoy it in the same way we enjoy bringing home tasty food from the supermarket, but we can hardly judge them for it. There was an interesting programme on radio 4 this morning about cats, and the fact that we have only fully understood their dietary needs for about 40 years or so. Prior to that they were not really kept as pets (not sure about that as I had a pet cat as a child) but as mousers or similar and needed to hunt to complement any scraps that were given. Hence it's a bit early to start to judge them as 'wanton killers'.

Now humans on the other hand, now there is a species that really enjoys killing, even their own kind

I do sympathise. Some years ago, my 2 cats and the cat from next door ganged up, caught a small frog, and played batting it between them for some time. By the time I heard the screaming from the frog, I was sure it would die more quickly if I didn't interfere. It didn't, the cats sat in a triangle, like the 3 witches, and slowly but surely passed it between them. I couldn't stand it any longer, removed the frog and my neighbour assisted in helping the frog to a more speedy exit from the world. We both felt bad, but the frog was beyond help. My two cats were so disgusted with me, they refused to come in the house, or to eat anything I put out for them for several days. They'd sit on the garage roof, fixing me with steely looks. I cracked and bought them that expensive cat food I usually refused to spend money on - that did the trick, they war back in the house in quick time. We now live on a main road, and have no cats as a result of this. Neither do the neighbours, but we do have lots of birds of many varieties. We also have a sparrow hawk, that arrives in the winter, and has a kind of all you can eat banquet as it swoops down and catches birds from our bird feeders. Nature eh!

Cats cannot 'enjoy' killing things. They have no sadistic impulses because they are simple little automatons with only a few brain cells.

Human beings on the other hand.......

That rings a bell.
A neighbour came around to my next door neighbour and told her that HER cat had just dragged the sunday lunch, cooked ,chicken off the draining board.

One of our cats tried to take a frozen chicken out of the cat flap.

My GD has four cats, and acres of land for them to roam, she has a cat flap that was being used by other cats, (I thought her cats were throwing parties) She solved that problem by having the cats re-chiped and the flap fitted with a securing device that responds to the chips,only. That however does not prevent the cats from dragging in moles, mice, rabbits,pigeons, and on one occasion a coot. Some,nearly all of them, alive.The coot made a spectacular mess,GD having left the kitchen door open, and the coot ending after a violent struggle, on the top of the kitchen units.Nature is nature, but I don't particularly like the amount of livestock, cats are responsible for killing.I know that squirrels are egg eaters, magpies (look and act a bit like killer whales) and kill small birds and eat eggs, but cats seem to enjoy it too much. Well fed cats are just as responsible. It's something in their genetic makeup, not as bad as foxes perhaps or wolverines, but nevertheless worrying.

How do you catch them?

My idiot cat is still bringing frogs in. He never seems to hurt them, but they can take ages to catch and repatriate!

My husband has a water-blaster that he uses to scare next doors cat. He very rarely hits the target but the horrible thing doesn't doesn't half make a run for it.

Sorry to all cat lovers. I don't hate cats I just hate them pooping all over my garden, ruining the plants and scaring the birds.

Well, it's not just cats. Plenty of birds kill other birds and some raptors have their young slightly later than songbirds because they know there will be a plentiful supply of gormless little fledglings on the ground to feed them on [hope my little blackbird is safe from our local sparrowhawk that is having a field day at the moment ].

gillybob daughter's cat has a collar with a bell that was the biggest they could find, short of a cow bell. Doesn't stop his murdering ways, unfortunately. Cats learn to stalk so silently and smoothly that their bells don't jingle until too late

Next door has a horrible hairy, sly cat. It sits on the fence eyeing up the birds in my garden (and sh*ts all over too but that's another story) . I am a very keen gardener and it has ruined the planting under part of the fence where it jumps down and it obviously sits in my garden chairs when we are at work as we often find cat hair in the material (also as soon as my husband sits down he has sneezing attack). Living by the sea side we get very few garden birds as the seagulls scare them off and I can't understand why responsible cat owners don't put bells on them just to give young birds half a chance.

My daughter's cat, name of Eric Cantona (!!), goes on a murdering spree every summer. Last year, he jumped on the bed and sat on SiL's chest. SiL opened his eyes to find the cat inches from his face, glaring at him with a wriggling bird in his mouth! SiL screamed and leapt up in the air, the cat dropped the bird on the bed and ran, and my daughter lay there laughing helplessly whilst SiL frantically tried to stop the bird from hiding under the bed. In the end, they were both hysterical (one laughing, the other panicking) so MiL was called over from her nearby house to capture the poor bird. Makes me giggle every time I remember it

I love birds and cats, and really the two don't go together. One day I was so upset with one of our cats stalking the baby moorhens on the pond (he had already killed some) that I crept up behind him, grabbed him, and chucked HIM in the pond. Only a little way in, just so he got a bit wet.I got a very dirty look - it put him off for a few days only. I've tried bells, they manage to creep along without making a noise, also a water pistol. As soon as my back is turned, they're at it again.

Our cat is on a spree at the moment and catches something most days. He leaves mice in the patio but brings birds in and eats all but the legs and lights - odd! He has taken his collar off three times in the last few weeks!

I haven't seen the robins round our honeysuckle for some days now, so the babies have presumably left the nest. We have had one baby laid out on the cloakroom floor, it had lost its yellow beak so must have been out of the nest for a few days. Hopefully the others all got away successfully.6

I know the robins have a nest in our honeysuckle, they are flying in and out all the time. So far the cats don't seem to have noticed but I don't know how much longer the robins can get away with it. We once had a whole nestful of fledgling blue tits fluttering round the garden and the cats never found them at all so we may be lucky.

Shite!

And fitting a collar with a bell is no good, the cat soon learns how to move without making the bell tinkle!

How strange that your cat is a silver tabby specki. I read the article before I bought her and paid no attention to it until the carnage began. I dismissed it thinking that a cat with such bright colouring would be seen a mile away [unlike a beautifully camouflaged brown tabby]. Do female cats tend to bring their victims home to 'feed their family' whereas tom cats just dispose of it outside? We get plenty of hedge sparrows round here but not many house sparrows. Was there talk of their numbers going down a while back? I think they're beautiful little birds.

My son has plenty of sparrows in Exeter. Don't know where they have gone round here.

I was thinking that too Nightowl - about baby birds.

Our cat does catch a good few birds, but tends to bring them in the house alive and usually unharmed. She sits at a respectful distance and stares at them. We then carry the bird outside, putting it on top of the shed, and keep her in for a wee while. She's also a great mouser, though, and sits at the bottom of the bird feeder tower where mice have burrowed and made nests.....
We have lots of sparrows, more this year than ever before.

I love cats but they are a menace when it comes to birds. My old cat who hasn't killed anything for years brought home a baby blackbird last week and I was furious with him. I wish I knew the answer, I'm not sure even a bell helps with baby birds who haven't learnt how to get out of the way quickly enough