Cats and birds

We were beginning to worry a little about the cat we found on Monday. She apparently had not relieved herself since we found her, even though we took her out and put her down into the flower bed, where there is a nice layer of mulch for a cat toilet. We were worried about leaving her in the house alone for several hours on Wednesday (potential explosive situation), while we out having our regular huevos rancheros and making a grocery run, so before lunch I went and bought a cat litter box.

We set it up in the hall, because we really don’t have a suitable place for a litter box, and she almost immediately went in took care of pending business. There are two bad things about this development. The first is that we don’t want an inside cat that uses a litter box. The second is that she passed something that looked like bright, red blood. Our vet has been closed since Saturday and will reopen on Thursday. We’re taking her in then.

Here she is relaxing on the leather recliner in the living room.

Not long after this adorable shot, she turned around and clawed the chair’s arm, leaving four or five punctures in it. This does not make us happy.

On a cat-related note, a few weeks ago we noticed what looked like an aborted bird nest about three feet off the ground in one of the crape myrtles we planted beside the house. Looks were deceiving. This is what I found when I looked into the nest on Tuesday.

I think there are three baby mockingbirds, being very quiet. The mother was perched in a tree some distance away, looking like a concerned parent.

I looked in the nest because I had seen the mockingbird flying around in the vicinity, although never lighting in the crape myrtle itself.

This is obviously a problem location for baby birds. I don’t think any of our cats have located the nest yet, but as soon as the birds fledge, they will end up on the ground with a limited ability to fly. At that point, a cat, most likely Sylvester, will kill them.

I wish I had destroyed the nest when I first noticed it, before the mockingbird had a chance to lay her eggs.

3 thoughts on “Cats and birds

  1. Is it possible to move the nest to a safer place, one that the parents will find easily? It would be a bummer for those babies not to have a chance at success. How about some kind of impromptu wire fencing out away from but circling the tree, one that Sylvester couldn’t get over? Mmmm?

    Hope the new kitty cat is okay.

  2. Be careful about moving the nest. Mockingbirds nest down low; their young leave the nest very early compared to other passerines and still unable to fly. They’ll jump to the ground and climb into a bush where Dad will feed them for the next ten or twelve days. Clearly, your cats will be a danger, but if you put them too high up, they may not be able to fledge properly.

  3. Robin and Karen — We didn’t move the nest. When I looked into the nest,I thought three things. One, those birds are very small; two, that nest is small even for those small birds; three, that nest looks like it would fall apart if I touched it. A few days after we noticed the baby birds in the nest, the nest was empty. We didn’t see any sign of baby birds anywhere around. At least one mockingbird has been flying around near the nest for the last few days making a call that sounds distressed. I fear the worst.

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