It's that time of year...

[puddingcat]

...When I get home from work to find two slightly damp clumps of feathers in the hall.

They aren't large clumps (or even large feathers; they're just-fledged sparrow size). They've just very obviously been pulled out all at once.

What's concerning me is that there's usually a small crunchy bit to go with the small feathers. Small and crunchy like a foot (say), or a bit of a wing (never a beak. Perhaps they taste nice?). I haven't yet found this bit.

Of course, this means I'll find it in my bed tonight, like a miniature Godfather warning for not feeding enough smelly food, or camouflaged in one of the floral splodges on the carpet once the lights are out.


I'm grateful, in a way. If I hadn't been feeding them any smelly food at all, it would have been a mouse, half of which would have been on a short trip to the inside of a cat.

Comments

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Look on top of the curtains. Follow any smell of fish.

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

It won't be on top of the curtains' Jasper's too lazy to climb that far, and Cleo doesn't hunt birds.

There is an interesting smell, though. How *do* cats make sparrow smell of week-old mackerel?

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

It's not the sparrow, it's the sparrow's poo. It's full of amines and smells like fish.

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

Oooh, really? I never knew that!

Two questions: Why does sparrow poo contain lots of amines, and why do amines smell of fish?

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Because the poo and wee come out of the same hole in birds, and the undigested protein from e.g. worms in the poo is moistened by the wee, allowing it to start decomposing into amines and similar as soon as it hits the carpet.

Amines don't smell of fish; fish smell of amines, or rather, decaying fish smells of amines because that's what it's decaying into, and the fish you can smell is the stuff that's started to decay.

[sandracarol.livejournal.com]

oh I forget other people have to put up with this as well.......
my fave is the feathers at the cat flap and you have to search the whole house not knowing if you are going to find a stroppy bird on top of the book case or a stick pile in the middle of the carpet.
Last week I found a beak in the kitchen,
no bird, no feet, not feathers, no blood just a really clean little beak.
cats are weird

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

I've never (yet) had to collect & release a bird; they always get eaten. Moth hunting is more popular - Cleo brings in the big furry ones then lets them go, and pesters me until I shake them loose from the curtains for her :)

[maycat55555.livejournal.com]

Oh, the joy of cats ;-).

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

I love them dearly, but...

No corpse in the bed, anyway. Perhaps it really was all eaten this time?

[razornet.livejournal.com]

Unrelated to this, but can you pop over and read this?

http://razornet.livejournal.com/296378.html

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

Oooh, ok. Shall I add you - I have no problem with you reading my friends posts?

[razornet.livejournal.com]

That'd be nice :). It not meant to pressurize, but to let people I'd like to maintain correspondence with know what happening.

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

NP :)