blackbird/house sparrow at door

[gazza]

Where i live there isnt any cats iv lived hear for 5 years and i havent seen 1. Or any magpies we do get a lot of jackdaws but they never come in the garden. /We have a house sparrow that flys up and down the glass door. First he sits on the door handel he sits there and screams then flys up and down the glass. And some times he gose on the ground and taps on the door so any 1 no Y.

[Emma]

More than likely he can see his reflection and thinks it's another sparrow.

[oasisjack]

Id just like to say your very lucky not to have any cats around. Theres about 12 our street. Though I must admit that three are mine!

[NotQuiteBlackCoot]

As a 3 cat household as well I fall into the awful dilemma of being both cat lover and bird lover (well all creature lover or at least respecter). It can be so hard to be fair to both species. Keeping cats permanently indoors, especially if they've been used to going out, is going against their natural needs. As they've already had their sexuality removed (good news for birds, ultimately) to take away being outdoors as well would be too much. Fortunately for our birds (not so much for mice) our lot tend to go out at night. Tried to reverse this once but it just became a nightmare. And before any mice lovers attack me, they rarely seem to take them either. The last one (at 2 'oclock in the morning) was alive and apparantly unharmed (cats can be very gentle mouthed when they want to be) so I put him/her in a box with a bit of food & water & bedding. I thought he'd/she'd be a gonner in the morning (later in the morning I should say) but he/she was quite happily having a wash and running round his/her box, so locking the cats in, he/she was released back into the wild (well our ivy plantation is pretty wild when you're a tiny mouse!)
I read somewhere that only a third, I think it was, of cats have the 3D abilities necessary to take healthy adult birds. If we get any nesting in our garden then I will try to keep our cats under surveillance and even house arrest for that period, when fledging is happening. Already got CJ's plastic predator guards on all boxes, so pre-fledgelings should be ok. Boxes aren't very accesible to a cat anyway.
Fingers crossed.

[Jenny]

Id just like to say your very lucky not to have any cats around. Theres about 12 our street. Though I must admit that three are mine!

Would echo this - seems like every cat in the neighbourhood makes a beeline for my garden. The dog goes ballistic and does a good job of chasing some off and my CatWatch is great, but I can't afford enough to cover the whole patch. Fortunately, two offenders have had a very narrow shave by the female sparrowhawk who patrols my patch (not seen either since!) and another had a painful coming together with a large, hungry just out of hibernation and decidedly grumpy hedgehog a couple of days ago - hedgehog won! :) :)