Backyard Birding Forum

This happened a month ago.

 

I was in the garage rearranging stuff when I heard the very distinctive clang on something hitting my suet feeder.  I come around the corner to see that one of my neighbour’s cats had a woodpecker in its mouth.  I give chase hoping that it would let go, but no such luck.  I ended up chasing the damn cat around my neighbour’s house until it ran under the deck.  A few minutes later, I see it crawl out and run off into the lower portion of my neighbour’s yard, and then trot off into the woods.

 

Here are some pics I managed to grab.

 



 



 



 

There and then, I decided that I needed to move my feeders.

 

Before, approx 4 feet off the ground.



 

After, approx 7 feet off the ground.

dang cats!
good idea to move the feeders higher.

seriously, matt.  i'm not sure what else i can do if this doesn't work.

i've raised it as high as i think is reasonable, and into an area that's exposed so the cats have nowhere to hide.

additionally, i kinda want to keep the cats around if they'd just leave the birds alone.  they can have all they want at the voles and mice. 

here's another encounter from a few weeks ago.  the same cat wandered into my garage while i was in there.  i tried to chase him out but he zigged instead of zagged and got trapped inside.  he ended up climbing the garage door and hiding in a corner.

it won't not budge even when i poked it with the handle of a rake and even when tried to pry the little bugger out.  so i just left the garage door open about 4" or 6" and he left after between 3 and 5 hours.

haven't seen him sneaking around since that episode though.  probably due to the cold, but a small part of me wants to think that i might have put the fear of god into him.

there's another cat, but that one is much more shy.