When I was a kid in Missouri, my gramma had an unfriendly cat that I didn’t like named Flicky. Often in the summer, I would be the first person in the house to get up in the morning and, loving the out-of-doors in the summer, I always headed straight for the back door. Sometimes there would be a little dead bird, which Flicky had killed in the night, lying right on the doorstep. I remember asking my gramma why Flicky killed that bird when he didn’t even want to eat it? and she answered, “He brings them home as a present to me.” This idea of Flicky’s generosity and kindness towards my gramma did not make me like that devious bird-killing stalker any better.

Scientists believe that next to habitat loss, the biggest threat to our wild bird population is death-by-cat. Feral cats, domestic cats, rural and city cats, all have a powerful instinct to stalk and kill small moving mammals and birds. In one study of cats' killing instinct, six cats were given a dish of their favorite food; while eating it, a white rat was let loose in the room. All six cats stopped eating, killed the rat, and went back to their food. They were obviously not killing to eat. They just seem to have an instinct to kill small things that move. Although I have seen cats eat mice that they have killed, I have never seen one actually eat a bird. I have no idea if they do or not.

It is difficult to estimate how many cats there are in the U.S, but certainly it is in the millions, and they kill millions of birds every year. If you want to attract wild birds to your yard with feeders, suet, or birdbath, do everything you can to insure that any bird visiting your yard is safe from neighborhood cats. In my yard, I have a birdbath which used to be stalked by a black cat. He would lie in wait behind a clump of grass, staring at the birdbath as if his life depended on it. But I would not leave him in peace; I yelled at him, threw sticks at him, clapped my hands, and chased him so much that he has apparently stopped coming to my yard. I haven’t seen him in almost three months