Jeff and the Yard Birds

By Karen Andres

My daughter scraped Jeff off the road when he was maybe 4 weeks old. He was hit by a car and his tail was crushed. She brought him home, took him to the vet and days later his tail was mostly amputated. He ended up with a stump of a tail. Fast forward 11 years and Jeff still has his stump and is 21 pounds of cat. Our daughter left him to us to take care of when she moved on.

Why am I telling you about Jeff? Well this past week we have noticed several baby birds in our yard-Robins and Blue Jays specifically. The most prominent and vocal are the Blue Jays. They are such good parents. They mind their fledglings when they took flight. I first spotted a baby Blue Jay in our grass and thought “how cute”. I let our 11-pound dog Archie to take care of business-who mostly ignored the baby Jay (he’s more a squirrel guy). I didn’t let Jeff out. Baby Jay hopped, flew away, or so I thought. I was about to go inside, but didn’t see Archie. I called him and then saw his tail sticking out of a bush. I called him again and he came over to me and at the same time out came a baby Jay who flew into my Fiddle-Leaf Fig. Inside, Jeff noticed him also and wanted to get him, with his front paws on the windowsill and all, but that’s all he could do from inside the house. All my animals were inside and the baby was safe. The following day, I let Jeff outside and the Blue Jay parents sounded the alarm and were on Jeff in a flash. Moral of the story? Be mindful of the baby birds in your yard and keep the cats inside. Jeff hasn’t been able to roam outside in the past few days.

 According to Audubon, many bird populations are in serious and steep decline due to the three major causes: habitat destruction, window bird collisions and cat predation. Hundreds of millions of birds are killed by cats each year with a 100 million more from window collisions.  We love our cats, but we also love the birds in our yards. Keep both safe by keeping your cats inside as best you can.

 Here are some reasons you should keep your cats indoors: Cats that are let outside tend to live shorter live. Cats can pick up diseases and transfer them to you. Cats kill wildlife no matter how well they are fed. Bells on collars aren’t a deterrent since wildlife doesn’t recognize the sound as threatening. Cats also prey on mice, chipmunks, squirrels, rabbits etc. taking away food from native species who hunt these animals for food.

 If you want more information on keeping your cat indoors, we have pamphlets at Brookside and we bring them out and about when we go on the road. If you would like to volunteer to help out at our informational table, reach out to us at greatsouthbayaudubon@gmail.com. I’ve done it several times, it’s fun and you meet the most interesting people.