friend is very upset - cat/birds - advice pls

[ThatVikRinA22]

hi
i have 2 moggies and i know that their nature means they will sometimes catch a bird or mouse, i hate it but i understand they do it.

my friend has 2 house cats and one outdoor cat that she has adopted. She has a large tree at the bottom of the garden, which a blackbird has made a nest in - every day now for the past 5 days her adopted moggie has taken a baby bird from the nest and deposited it at her door - alive.

she is distraught! the birds are too young to fly and she cant see the nest to put it back. she has even smacked the cat - ive told her i dont really see the point in smacking the cat - it wont understand!

she has a bell on its collar - but of course these baby birds cant go anywhere - they cant fly yet. i think its probably got them all now anyway (it had 2 yesterday) and she ended up having to take them to the vet to put to sleep - there was no way of getting them back mummy blackbird...

what can she do? the RPSB advice is to put them back where found - but not being able to fly they would just get eaten my the neighbourhood moggies...or starve/freeze.

she is upset, i understand why, i ended up in the tree yesterday trying to locate the nest - to no avail.

any ideas? (we are both cat lovers so please dont suggest anything that entails offing the moggie!)

If they are strong enough to perch put them as high as possible in the nest tree. The parents will feed them there.

Sadly there isn't anything you can do - if they aren't even fledglings they won't survive outside of the nest, so if she can't get them back in it she won't be able to help them. And as you say no point in a bell as the baby birds can't get away. If they are fledglings (same size as adult bird with fluffier feathers/flatter beak) then they may survive if she can put it somewhere up high where the adults can feed it but the cat can't reach.

Is it outdoor only? Can it be brought in and kept in until they fledge? Or can she erect some sort of barrier around the tree trunk to stop the cat climbing the tree?

If it really has had them all then hopefully Mr & Mrs Blackbird won't nest in the same tree for their second brood.

Are you sure the cat isn't finding them on the ground? Baby blackbirds go out the nest before they can fly, don't they?

thanks - ive passed that on.

sorry missed some posts -

she is getting them straight from the nest - we watched her do it yesterday, but we cannot see exactly where the nest is! so frustrating.

the tree is actually in the garden at the bottom of hers, so she cannot do anything to block the tree off - they didnt even have feathers - not many anyway - just getting their wings - it was really sad, poor little things

anyway - friend thinks she has got them all now....its five she has had so far. im hoping the blackies will learn and not nest there again.

oh - and sorry - the q about keeping it in - she cant mix it with her two housecats - its never ever lived inside - it sleeps in the porch in one of those dome cat beds - it was a stray that she feeds and looks after but i dont even think it would like it inside now - its lived out too long.