Last week my sparrow count dropped to nearly zero for 3 straight mornings

I usually see around 20 sparrows at my feeder by 6am but last Tuesday through Thursday there was barely a single one. Turns out a neighbor's cat started roaming the block at dawn and spooked them into hiding. Has anyone else dealt with a cat scaring off your early morning birds?

2 comments

2 Comments

matthewmartin28d ago

Wait, a single cat just roaming around at dawn wiped out your entire sparrow flock for three days? That's wild. I've had dogs scare off birds before but never just one cat causing that kind of dramatic drop.

milesbailey27d ago

Hang on, @matthewmartin - are we sure it was the cat or could it be something else? In my experience, a single cat hunting at dawn would mostly just pick off a few birds, not send the entire flock packing for three days. I've seen cats around bird feeders plenty of times, and while they do spook the birds for an hour or so, the flock usually comes back once the cat moves on. You gotta consider other factors like a predator bird like a hawk circling overhead, or maybe the sparrows just found a better food source elsewhere. Cats are efficient hunters, sure, but they're not going to clear out every sparrow in the area for days unless it's a feral colony working together. I'd bet my bottom dollar there's more to this story than a single tabby.