REMEMBERING WHEN: The cat caught a bird

By Keith Schell

Our late father loved and would do anything for his birds. He was kind to all the animals we ever had, but the wild birds that frequented the bird feeders outside our home in the winter were a particular favourite of his.

When our family moved into our newly built country house in the early 1970s, Dad set up bird feeders on poles outside the dining room picture window so we could watch the birds flit in, take their seeds, and flit out again. We spent many happy winter lunchtimes watching the birds feeding outside our big picture window as we ate.

After finishing lunch, Dad would usually take a little quiet time before resuming his outdoor chores to sit at the kitchen table and look out the window at his beloved birds. He took quiet joy in watching the constant and colourful avian activity—the different species of birds flying to the feeders, taking a seed, and flying away again.

We took great pleasure in feeding the birds, even spreading seeds on the ground to encourage those who were reluctant to use the feeders.

That, as it turned out, would prove to be a mistake.

One year in the early spring, Mom went outside for some task and noticed a little pile of feathers in the melting snow under one of the bird feeders. She went over to investigate and discovered what remained of a dead bird.

To make matters worse, it was a chickadee—one of the friendliest of birds and one of the species we particularly enjoyed seeing around our property.

We could only surmise that while the family cat was outside, she had stalked the chickadee as it foraged for seeds on the ground, pounced, and killed it when the opportunity presented itself.

Mom, angered, came back into the house and said to me, "The cat killed a chickadee! Just wait ‘til Dad finds out about this!"

She then found the cat in the house and scolded her sternly, much like she would scold one of her own children who had done something wrong, ending with the age-old threat that mothers have used throughout time to instill the fear of God into their kids:

“YOU JUST WAIT ‘TIL DAD GETS HOME!”

In our house, that was the ultimate threat. You knew you were in big trouble when Mom said that. When Mom brought Dad into it, she was bringing in the big guns, so to speak. While it rarely happened, when Dad did get involved, you knew you had committed a major no-no. And messing with Dad’s birds was a major no-no in our house.

The cat and I happened to be in the kitchen when Dad got home from work that day. When Mom told him what had happened, he was visibly upset. His face clouded with protective anger at the news of the death of one of his beloved birds.

Dad turned to the cat and scolded her very sternly.

And what did the cat do? Beloved by the entire family and secure in the knowledge that she was in a safe environment and wouldn’t be harmed, she sensed the stern tone in Dad’s voice and meowed right back at him with a tone of defiance I’ve never forgotten. It was as if she were saying, “I’m a cat, and that’s what I do!” Then she sullenly walked away, and that was that.

While we were not happy, we knew we were faced with a bit of a dilemma: how do you discipline a cat just for being a cat? Even though they are warm and fuzzy and love to sleep in your lap, cats are natural-born predators. Stalking and killing are simply what cats do, even though we didn’t want her to in this particular case.

Had we caught her in the act and separated her from her prey while scolding her, she might have understood why she was being disciplined, even though she was simply acting on her natural instincts. But because the deed was already done, the cat probably wouldn’t have understood or associated any discipline with her past actions.

What else could we do? We didn’t think the cat would have understood why she was being disciplined if we did so after the fact.

In hindsight, we had no one to blame but ourselves. We really shouldn’t have spread seeds on the ground under the feeder in the first place. She was a good cat, but a cat can’t help being what it is. Because she rarely went outside in the winter, we really didn’t foresee an issue. We usually kept an eye on her when she was outside near the bird feeders, but we couldn’t watch her all the time. Sometimes, her natural instincts simply took over.

Lesson learned. After that day, we made a point never to spread seeds on the ground under the bird feeders again, removing as much temptation as possible from the cat. She never caught another bird again after that.

And from that day on, Dad’s birds lived happily ever after.