• MrOtingocni@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    That’s blowing my mind that birds, masters of the sky - a realm to which they can easily escape to where few can follow, are such a frequent snack for cats, who under usual circumstances don’t often fly. Cats are like ninjas.

      • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world
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        12 days ago

        they aren’t. only a small percentage of cats live up to the ‘serial killer’ reputation, someting like less than 10%. most cats can’t catch shit, and what they do catch are easy prey, like weak/injuried, or baby animals.

        • mcv@lemmy.zip
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          12 days ago

          I once took over my neighbour’s cat. He was very scared and timid. Stayed behind the fridge for the first weekend. Took half a year before he was comfortable enough to be petted. Never wanted to go outside. Didn’t even want to go into the stairwell of our building. Until some day it did. I was really proud of his newfound courage. But it was very eager, so I followed it. It went upstairs to the common attic, where I saw a very scared looking pigeon sitting on a box surrounded by way too many feathers.

          From that moment on I kept him inside again. Apparently even that super timid scared cat will kill breeding pigeons.

    • Mike D@piefed.social
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      12 days ago

      I had an indoor/outdoor cat that would catch birds at night, bring them home dead , and play with them.

      What a mess.

      Next cat would only go out during the day and lay around. He did manage to catch two rats

      • CentipedeFarrier@piefed.social
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        12 days ago

        My cat ran a mouse up my curtain yestetday. Came to bed, there’s a cat just staring up at the wall over my bed… I figured it was greebles, but then the mouse poked it’s head out of the grommets…

        Needless to say I managed to scare it off the curtain and we teamed up to get it out of the house.

        My cats don’t get to go outside. I used to have a free-access catio, but a former cat would bring chipmunks inside and let them go, and once kept a dead squirrel in a box in an unused closet for three days while he ate it (i didn’t actually think to look in the closet he kept going into, cats are weird and do weird things…), so…. That’s not allowed anymore.

        • Mike D@piefed.social
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          12 days ago

          My parents at would do the same with chipmunks.

          That cat would also growl at kids waking home from school while sitting inside near the window.

      • MrOtingocni@lemmy.world
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        12 days ago

        Pretty wild to think these goofy furballs we keep around as pets are apex predators.

        I had a cat one time that liked to play fetch. Just like a dog. Never seen anything like it.

        • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world
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          12 days ago

          they are not apex predators.

          cats are prey for larger animals and are often killed my racoons and other stronger animals.

        • CentipedeFarrier@piefed.social
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          12 days ago

          I had a cat one time that liked to play fetch. Just like a dog. Never seen anything like it.

          I had a cat like that :)

          Colorpoint shorthairs (the ones that look like regular cats, not necessarily the over-bread siamese) are known for that sort of behavior. Mine was a cream colorpoint, and basically looked solid white, but “catdog” is how that breed is normally described, because they tend to be wildly friendly and play fetch.

          • Hueristic_Autistic@lemmy.world
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            12 days ago

            I had a blue point that was a mouse hunter and she was so proud of every kill. She’s do her little proud walk with it in her mouth and everything like, “hey look what I got!”

        • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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          12 days ago

          Not sure house cats count as apex predators because they are also prey animals. A tiger is an apex predator because what eats tigers? But there’s stuff that’ll eat house cats.

          Nevertheless house cats are extremely effective at hunting small prey. I had a maine coon that drove my city block’s vole population extinct for a good ten years. Big dude either loved digging or hated voles.

    • mcv@lemmy.zip
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      12 days ago

      There’s that time of the year when birds land, make nests, lay eggs and have to hang around to feed their young. That’s a very vulnerable time for them. Make sure your bird house and bird feeder are cat proof.