Protecting birds from the cat

The cold-blooded killer brought a bird inside last week. I managed to rescue the bird and it flew away, seemingly unscathed, but it left behind a pile of feathers which it surely needed in the cold spell we had. I felt very guilty and bought some bird food which I put outside on a high window ledge but none of the birds are very interested except for a couple of wood pigeons.

I couldn’t really get cross with Victoria because she was just following her instincts and I suspect she had an advantage in the snow because half her body is white. One of my colleagues told me about something called a catbib which is available in Australia and effective at reducing predation by cats. Bells, especially in noisy urban areas, are less effective as a warning for birds but birds do notice colourful flashy things as vision is their most important sense.

I found something similar to the catbib in the UK from LifexCollars and we’re giving it a try. Victoria doesn’t seem to mind wearing it at all and it has safety catch which comes undone if it gets caught on something. We’ll take it off her overnight because we keep her locked indoors. Only time will tell whether it works.