I mentioned that a couple of days ago I woke up to find a small dead bird in the hallway. Well yesterday I woke up, opened the door to the back bedroom and a big pigeon flew into my face.
I envision the scenario that resulted in a Brighton pigeon being in the window-less back room as thus:
- He either gets lucky or a long stalk results in him getting hold of said pigeon
- He manoeuvres the pigeon through the 6 inch gap in the open bedroom window
- He manages to get himself and the pigeon through the room without waking me up
- He retreats into the killing room to either play then finish off his victim, or to eat it
- He discovers that the victim isn't dead, it manages to foil his attempts at pursuit and he gives up and wanders off
Clearly little 6 month old Dillinger is living up to his name as a ruthless cold-hearted mercenary and is using the back bedroom as his killing room. But what to do about it? None of my other cats bought in anything as Fraidy would lose face and Dexter was too busy making friends with them.
Cats are wild things and killing birds and mice is what they live for. They'll even take a moth if nothing else is on offer. But this is the third bird he's bought into the house within a month and I'm not keen to spend the rest of his life dreading what I might step in when I get up.
Last night I decided to lock him in but he could bring in a little 'present' at any time. I've always hated the idea of bells on cats but I don't want him cutting a swathe through the local bird population either. Given the choice though, I can't see any other option can you?
Good idea; maybe we should change his name! We tried the bell but he writhed around on the floor for ages pathetically struggling to get it off. He did not react well to it at all so now we just keep him in at night. He comes in around 11pm and we shut the window until the morning.
ReplyDeleteHopefully he's just a night stalker!