(VIDEO) Can Domestic Cats Be Beneficial To Wild Birds?
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It’s spring here in the Pacific Northwest and the wild birds on our property are busy preparing to bring the next generation into the world. We’ve heard woodpeckers, drumming and songbirds singing, and we have seen many birds chasing one another or actively fighting as they attempt to establish and defend nesting territories on our homestead.
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Birds that have successfully established their territories have been busy gathering nesting materials. We’ve seen Anna’s Hummingbirds collecting spiderweb, American Crows collecting twigs, and Pacific Wrens collecting small bits of moss. While these birds are hard at work constructing nests with their preferred building materials, others are carving nest cavities out of solid wood or taking advantage of cavities that others have already excavated and abandoned. Regardless of the type of nest they are building, all of these birds will need soft, insulating material with which they can line their nest to keep their eggs safe and warm. That is where our cats come in.
We brush our cats regularly and this results in a lot of excess fur. We save this fur throughout the year and when spring rolls around we put the collected fur outside so the local wildlife can put it to good use. It’s amazing how quickly birds spot and take advantage of this fur- something we would normally discard is a valuable resource to them.
We use a wire screen to hang the fur in a tree so birds can easily access it, but no special equipment is needed if you want to offer your own pet’s fur to your wild neighbors. You can simply wedge a ball of fur into the crook of a tree or any other place that will allow birds convenient access. We’ve done this even in very urban settings and have seen a surprising number of birds taking advantage of the gift.
While the birds are helping themselves to the bounty our cats provide, we keep them safe by keeping our cats indoors (or in an outdoor space that is enclosed) and only letting them roam the property while they are with us and on a leash.
Managing our cats’ outdoor time in this way has the added benefit of keeping them safe from the many Bobcats, Coyotes, and other wild predators with whom we share our property. We prevent our cats from killing wild animals and we keep wild animals from killing our cats. There’s a fitting metaphor for this that has something to do with “two birds and one stone”, but somehow, considering the context, it just feels completely wrong to use it…
