Cats and Birds

Here at Birdsbesafe LLC, we learn a lot about cats and birds in the process of our daily life.

For those of you who want to delve more deeply into understanding birds' vision and wildlife rehabilitation, or learn more about reducing cat predation on birds or how to contain cats, we're providing some further information here on these subpages.

Please, don't feed birds at your house in such a way that your cat can easily capture them. Change the height of the station; don't let birds ground-feed near cats; and stop feeding the birds in summer.

Discourage birds from nesting in areas near your home where your cat has had hunting success. If you know that ground-nesting birds usually like a spot very near your house, perhaps you can put a light on that area before they build a nest there in spring or play a boombox at night to discourage them from settling in.

You can limit the amount of time your cat spends outdoors, perhaps eliminating dawn hunting hours spent outside.

You can keep your cat indoors during the few weeks when fledglings are leaving the nest, because many fledglings can not fly for a brief period and are spending time on the ground. They are defenseless against cats, Birdsbesafe Cat Collar or no.

Or you can keep your cat indoors always. An indoor lifestyle is safer and healthier for your cat--as well as the neighborhood birds. Just keep your cat active with some cat toys and a window seat, and they will be happy enough. See Cats Indoors Campaign of American Birds Conservancy here.

For more on the problem of feral cats preying on birds, see Ted Williams article in Audubon magazine, "Felines Fatale".

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