Can you stop cats bringing in birds?

[IfAtFirstUDontSucceed]

Our 2 year old cat has suddenly started bringing in birds on a regular basis. We've had one live one, which we managed to release again, the rest dead.
Luckily, he doesn't try to eat or play with them but the feathers still get everywhere!

This is quite a recent thing, he's never done it before but now it's at least one a week!

Is there a reason why he could be doing this, and is there anyway he could be discouraged?

We've put a belled collar on him, no difference!
He's well fed (but a greedy scrounger. He's a rescue cat, and was very underweight so was possibly starved). But, as I say, he shows no interest in eating them!

It's the time of year when there are a lot of naive birds who've not long left the nest, so easier for him to catch. Keeping cat indoors from dusk til it's properly light may reduce hunting opportunities.

Sadly it's a cat's instinct as a predator to chase small squeaky creatures, whether they're hungry or not. MCat grew out of it aged around 2 - 3. Still get "gifted" the occasional rodent though.

We don't have a catflap. I don't open the door if they turn up with a catch.

I have had 'bird flying round the house' incidents in the past. Last week I had 'mouse in the lounge' nightmare. My 10 year old has suddenly started bringing me 'presents' again after a 5 year sabbatical, the bugger!

Ah, that makes sense, picking on the young uns! Hopefully it'll pass!

I was about to post the same.. my dear sweet Ophie has become a serial killer. Sadly there are birds nested in the eaves of our house and she has basically sat on the conservatory roof with her mouth open for the last few days :( The babies totter out and bingo.
We had to put another out of its misery tonight :(
Can't keep her in indefinitely because she yowls continually!

I admire her skill but hate her instinct to murder!

He's pretty nippy, does a fab job of catching (and eating) the dumb flies bouncing off the window!
Would prefer him to stick to the insects!

Collars with bells on help a lot

I feed my two younger cats a little more about 8pm. Also yy to collars with bells on. There are some nice collars with quick release catches that don't cost much.

Mine now have 3 bells on their collars. It's like Christmas when they walk but it works.

Ophie will NOT wear a collar...I did try but she was frantic with terror and nearly garotted herself trying to get it off. She is usually in all night but this afternoon's death was at 5pm :/

Harry was scared of the bell so we had to take it off as he wouldn't move! Luckily he's never been a hunter (unless you count pond plants) and has only ever brought home other cats' catches.

My cat is an expert hunter. It makes little difference about the time of day. When the birds are unavailable she brings me frogs! If the frog screams loud enough, I rescue them often in the middle of the night I can be seen scantily clad running up the garden with a frog in the dustpan

What's going on? After a couple of years off, we've suddenly been gifted with several flying and once flying presents. Although to be fair the 3am call of the bastard seagulls is making me feel slightly murderous!

Our cat was a hunter in his younger day. We had a collar which I think came from pets at home. It had an alarm and flashing lights that went off when he pounced. it did significantly reduce the number of birds that got bought in.

I think that would give poor Harry heart failure Hammy!

10 mins after I post this happens. Sodding cat.

To be fair it used to give us a heart attack too. When he jumped on the bed all you could see were red flashing lights coming at you

Cats will be cats, it's that time of year, I don't have any words of wisdom and I have 10 cats. I get 2-3 minimum presents a day, regardless of the time, light level, hunger etc. All I can do if leave this picture here and hopefully make you feel better that your Dcat doesn't do this. (Don't mean to upset anyone, hopefully fellow cat owners will see it for what it is)

You must be single handedly responsible for the decimation of your local wildlife.

That is something to be proud of!

Unfortunately we do believe the cats have had an impact on the mouse population, we have fields and paddocks to the rear and used to have many Red Kites visit the fields, but not so much any more, we see them circling further away now. We have stables to the front, and the people tell us how grateful the are for our cats and keeping the mice under control. This present was one of George's 'special' ones.

Is that a fox or a rabbit?

It's a wild hare twilight

Palomb single handedly? Really?

With ten cats in a rural area? Yes.

Palomb I'm not entirely sure of your tone, but I can assure you that the general wildlife population is fine. There is notably less mice within a cats roaming distance from my house yes, but the paddocks and fields I spoke of, border a forest, right now, I can just about see 2 deer in a field, swallows, a kestrel, sparrows, 3 magpies, and from the new mole hills in my garden I would say that the moles are doing well too. Cats are part of nature too, it is just what they do. If it wasn't my cats then it would be Red Kites, Owls, Kestrels, the stables would have cats of their own, Foxes.