Fur and Feathers

The other day I was standing at a table sorting seeds, vaguely aware of the cat playing around my feet, when she suddenly grabs me by the ankle, I shake her off and put my foot down again – on a dead bird.  Oh joy. There are feathers floating everywhere!

The bird population around here has a difficult time maintaining numbers, so it’s VERY annoying when the cats catch birds (their job is actually to catch the mice & voles, which eat my seeds before they can germinate, and to control snakes).  There are plenty of natural predators, and a good number of hunters who kill birds for sport, so it’s always sad to be disposing of another feathered corpse.
This issue raises a dilemma: should one put seed and food out for the birds when it’s winter?  Bird-food would attract the birds to a known location, the cats would lie in wait, and it would simply act as a trap for cats to catch more birds.  Bird-seed scattered about would also attract more mice.  And chasing the mice come the snakes...  To feed? or not to feed?

The two cats, Mica & Silica, work hard most of the day, hunting and fishing - except for when it rains, when they lounge about waiting for it to stop.  We bring them in at dusk for their own protection from the night-predators in the forest who kill cats (we’ve already lost two to the wilderness).  Thus we strive to maintain natural equilibrium..

CT

and sometimes they find something quite unexpected - toad vs cats: toad wins.