How to Stop a Bird-Murdering Cat

Photo from The Atlantic

This month in bird news: a few weeks ago, I had a story in The Atlantic online about one way we might mitigate a serious threat to native birds: getting eaten by pet and stray cats. Ed Yong at National Geographic, as well as blogs at Smithsonian and Mental Floss, gave the piece a nod. Long-time readers, thank you so much for supporting my writing over the years.

Also, for the 30 Rock fans among us: the headline chosen for the story made me think of "The Rural Juror" episode. I think "bird murder" would have fit in well with Barbara Walter's interview with Jenna:

Both Ends of the Chain

In the Wild North, Ivan Shiskin

Around Christmas, I often turn to Chekhov’s stories. His all-penetrating skepticism might seem at odds with the holiday spirit. That’s because it is. As some might feel a need to roast a beast for Christmas dinner, I feel called to roast up a nice juicy pile of sentimentality. It stands in the way of what’s real and worth remembering. And where else could we find a wintery field evoked so sharply than with Chekhov? Here is his description of a spring day turning back into winter:

A woodcock chirred by, and a shot rang our boomingly and merrily in the spring air. But when the forest grew dark, an unwelcome east wind blew up, cold and piercing, and everything fell silent. Needles of ice reached over the puddles, and the forest became inhospitable, forsaken, desolate. It felt like winter.

The setting is not Christmas but Good Friday. It’s the first paragraph of the story “The Student,” about a seminarian on his way home. He feels that the contradiction between the season and the weather is a sign of nature’s indifference for him and his wishes, a favorite theme of Chekhov’s. But against this familiar backdrop, the good doctor does something strange: he questions his own skepticism.

Winter Travelers

Rusty Blackbirds are one of the fastest declining species in North America. In the same family as orioles, red-winged blackbirds, and grackles, it has lost between 85 and 99 percent of its population over the last 40 years. This past weekend, we saw two pairs of Rusties in our neighborhood in St. Louis county. 

 One of the pairs (male on the left, female on the right.) Their buffy-colored eyebrow and the rusty ends of their feathers distinguish them from other small blackbirds.

Both pairs together.

Rusty Blackbirds typically forage in bottomland forests with standing water. They flip over leaves, looking for small arthropods. They arrived shortly after a rainstorm and after my dad had blown the leaves into piles, so the yard must have looked like a good place to eat. Traditionally, they winter in the bottomlands of the American South and breed in boreal forests in the Northeast U.S. and Canada. Both habitats have suffered serious damage in the past century.

They were following a group of European Starlings. Migratory birds, especially blackbirds and starlings, often form mixed flocks for protection from predators. There's also evidence that Rusties, which have smaller beaks than grackles, follow other blackbird species around and pick up the scraps from nuts that the larger birds have cracked open. 

It was truly special to see the Rusties so close to my home. It's a species that I have learned much about: my research adviser at Truman surveyed the birds in their wintering grounds and is an expert on their ecology. But their existence was somewhat theoretical until I saw them through my front door. It was fascinating to realize that they were only midway on their journey to Arkansas or Mississippi. Reflecting on how a small songbird carries itself thousands of miles every year is always a source of wonder for me.