Protect Your Birds From Cats

Everyone knows I love birds. I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t. Many people don’t know I also love cats. My daughter also loves animals. I’m certain she inherited love of animals from both her mother and me. She wants to save the world actually. She’s an adult and belongs to a sea turtle rescue organization. She has, over the years, rescued five feral cats and somehow they have ended up in my country backyard. Spayed and neutered of course, and well fed and taken care of. So the question is how can a lover of both birds and cats reconcile the activities of both?

Some organizations promote keeping cats indoors. Some are almost militant about it. While this is a good idea for domestic cats it’s not possible for feral cats and we all know there are far too many of them as it is. If you live in a neighborhood with neighbors nearby you’ll also have one or two that see no issue with letting their cats roam. There’s not alot you can do about these people either. So what do you do to attract birds to your yard and also discourage cats from coming to your yard and trying to make a snack out of your feathered friends?

Ideally you should place your birdhouse as high into the bird’s habitable zone as you can. What I mean by a habitable zone is that height off the ground that a bird prefers. For example a Violet-Green Swallow prefers to be 5-15 feet above the ground while the Indigo Bunting prefers 2-10 feet. If you’re trying to attract the Swallow place the house 15 feet above the ground and for the Bunting 10 feet. This puts as much distance between your birds and any marauding cats as possible.

If you’re mounting your birdhouse on a post you have other options. Imagine if you have a 4″ x 4″ post in the ground and 8 feet tall. Go to your local hardware store and purchase a can of foam filler and a PVC pipe 5″ in diameter and 8 foot long. Before mounting the birdhouse put the PVC pipe over the post and sink it 6″ into the ground. Then use the foam to seal the exposed end of the pipe so water cannot get into it and it’s not a trap for small birds that might fall from the nest. The foam will expand and seal the pipe. It can also be trimmed and painted to suit your landscape. This will prevent cats, and even squirrels, from climbing to your birdhouse and attacking your birds.

Even taking all the precautions you can you’re still going to have fatalities if cats roam your yard. You cannot stop it and you need to be prepared for that. All of us love nature and we don’t mind the Osprey or Eagle snatching up a fish. Yes, we know that this is what they must do because no one is feeding them. Cats, even domestic ones, cannot deny their nature. They were born hunters and, given the opportunity, that’s what they’ll do. If you put all the safeguards you can in place you can mourn any losses you have and reconcile it with the fact you’re providing an environment where many more birds will live than might have otherwise.

You’ve Done Your Homework Selecting A Birdhouse, Now What?

In my last article I covered what you should look for when purchasing a birdhouse. This covered the area for the bird to nest in, the height of the entrance hole above the floor, the size of the hole itself, and height above ground for protection from predators. This column will tell a beginning birder what to consider to attract birds to your yard and once you have homes in place, what to do to attract birds to nest there.

Once you have decided on the type of bird you want to attract your should probably go out and purchase 10-15 houses, right? If you have quite a few houses you’ll have a backyard full of birds, won’t you? Unfortunately, no. At least not in most cases. Take for example the Eastern Bluebird. They are notoriously territorial and will drive rivals out of an area as large as 5 acres. If you were to put up 17 houses in a 30 x 40 foot backyard you can bet that only one of them would ever be occupied with an Eastern Bluebird.

If you have a small yard your safest bet is to set up a couple of houses. Have one for an insect eating species and another for a seed eating species. This way a breeding pair is not competing with another species for mates or for food and they would be generally agreeable to share their territory. Other birds, such as the Barn Swallow enjoy communal living. They do not require a territory anywhere near as large as the Bluebird and you could easily place several nesting shelves within 15-20 feet of each other without a problem. It all depends on the type of bird you want to attract so do your homework.

Once you have decided on a home, and the type of bird you want to attract is there anything else you can do? You bet! Once your birdhouses are in place provide the birds with nesting material. Building a nest is hard work and if you can give the birds a helping hand they will be more likely to nest in the area. I have large dogs. One is an Alaskan Malamute and I used to raise them. One spring I thoroughly brushed them when they were shedding their winter coats and ended up with a very large pile of dog hair. I placed it in the yard and within a few days the pile was completely gone. No, it had not blown away. I was amazed at the number of trips nesting birds made to the pile absconding with small tufts of fur only to return and take another beak full! Animal fur works well but horsehair, finely shredded newspaper or other similar materials can make fine nesting. If you have a paper shredder and shred newspaper or plain brown paper bags from the grocery store this will work well too. Avoid shredding envelopes with transparent cellophane windows because the edges of the cellophane can be quite sharp and will not dull over time.

Have you forgotten anything? You’ve set up the home, you’ve made sure it was designed for the bird you want to attract and you’ve set out nesting material. What else needs to be done. Don’t forget, early in the season the birds are returning from their wintering grounds or they’ve been through a long winter. Early in the season food, and even water that’s not frozen for a significant part of the day may be hard to come by. Find out what the bird you want to attract likes to eat and if it’s a seed eater set up a feeder with that food in it. With a house on hand, nesting material and food and water nearby you’ve done all you can to put out the welcome mat for the birds you want to attract!