Cat bells: think of it from the bird's side

["Philip A. Veerman" <>]

That story (the use of a bell on a cat) maybe presupposes that a bird should know that the sound of a bell indicates danger, a fairly serious piece of mental effort for a bird, without having been trained to make that connection. I don't think that is a fair assumption.

 

Less but still slightly questionable is the idea (if that is being thought) that a cat deliberately reduces the sound the bell makes (other than by their normal instinctive habit of stalking quietly) for reasons of hunting. They may just find the either the thing hanging around their neck or the sound it makes, irritating.

 

And no, I am not knocking the idea that we should minimise the damage that cats cause. (I like the idea of a 10 kg bell.)

 

Philip

-----Original Message-----
From: J Rose <>
To: m("vicnet.net.au","birding-aus");"> <m("vicnet.net.au","birding-aus");">>
Date: Wednesday, 1 December 2004 13:32
Subject: [BIRDING-AUS] One lucky CP

My border collie (also a twitcher) and I rescued a crested pigeon from the neighbour’s cat on Saturday evening around dusk. We live on a 2-acre block at Highvale (around 35ks n/w of Brisbane cbd). The moggie was toying with the capture up the back of our block and my dog came in the house barking for me to take a look. Of course the cat took off as we approached and I was able to rescue the CP. Unfortunately the dog was unable to catch the cat!!

 

The CP was missing all but 4 tail feathers and plenty of down feathers from around the anal region. Very little blood though and no puncture marks so I dabbed it with some Betadine in the appropriate places and took it off to our wonderful wildlife carer for some R & R where it has lived through the initial shock (which is the usual killer), and has survived to day 4. Hopefully in around a month’s time I will be able to release it back in this vicinity.

 

A peculiar aspect of this episode though is to attest to the fact that the cat was wearing a collar with bells and serves to prove a suspicion that I’ve had for some time: -

            I’m certain that after wearing these bell collars for some time, cats learn to hunt and stalk without them ‘ringing’.

 

Anyone have any comments in this??

 

Cheers

John