Wings on the River: Housecat conundrums

Recently, my cat was outside when a chickadee careened into the window and dropped, stunned, in front of her. She snatched it and ran toward us. Humans cascaded out of the house, yelling and grabbing, and she dropped the bird. It revived and flew away. She didn’t hurt it, she just really wanted a present for us, apparently.

Cats are as weird as birds.

This particular cat has saved my sanity more times than I can count. She came to us as a tiny kitten, when I was 9 or 10 years old and convinced I could somehow resolve the age-old conflict between bird and cat, and befriend both.

Over the years, no matter how bad things got — when I was so anxious my hands shook; years I wasn’t sure I’d survive — this cat was always there, calm and bright.

This cat would catch a bird, scamper about with them, and pat them disappointedly when they, for some funny reason, stopped moving.

We tried bells. She learned to walk so smoothly they didn’t ring. She was well-fed, of course. She still wanted to play with the birdies.

We tried making her an indoor cat. This did not go well. Have you ever met a 2-year-old? A really loud, really smart one who is deep in genuine and constant misery? And nocturnal? And capable of days-long hunger, water, and bathroom strikes? And has sharp claws and teeth? And who, at the end of the bathroom strike, vengefully excretes on your most fragile items at midnight? And who moves like greased lightning, and cannot be trained, pled with, bribed, caught, or even reliably located? Well, I have. Even worse, I loved it deeply.

We eventually tried manufactured cat-bibs. These are triangle-shaped pieces of foam that hang from a cat’s collar. They break the connection between eye and paw and make successful pounces more difficult.

And it worked! Until she took it off in the bushes somewhere, and we had to buy another... and another...

Such collars open, if tugged hard enough, releasing cats if they get tangled. This cat, of course, can open hers on purpose.

But it worked. Kinda.

And it was worth it, because outdoor cats kill between 1.3 and 4 billion birds each year in the United States, according to Cornell University. The toll on mammals is even higher, more than 6 billion.

Most of the culprits are ownerless strays, the sort who live in ragged colonies along Riverfront Trail, though pets also contribute.

To really solve this problem you’d have to stop those strays. Finding them owners would be ideal, but unrealistic — there’s so many! Catching, neutering and releasing strays, as many advocate, doesn’t significantly reduce feral numbers over time, according to Cornell’s research. There’s too many complications. Also, neutered cats still kill birds.

My cat friend is old now. She mostly naps, munches meat fragments (refusing all commercial treats), and has relatively sedate adventures (such as climbing the swaying tip of the weeping willow at daybreak to lick up specific raindrops). Birds ... too much work for her old bones, unless they plop unconscious at her paws.

Still got no solution to the age-old conflict between love of cat, and love of bird. I’m as guilty as anyone — though I’d never get an outdoor cat again. And I can’t help dreaming that if we pulled in all the strays, bought cat bibs for the ones we can’t contain, and really committed to it, birdlife could live near us despite humans and cats.