Cat kill: Asian Paradise Flycatcher

Domestic cats are excellent hunters, always stalking and in many cases catching garden birds. They may then present the caught bird to their owners, as if to repay them for the care and food. An earlier post details how a cat caught one of a pair of kingfisher. Mynas normally alert other birds whenever a cat is in my garden and we have also been told that cats are a definite no-no in Australia.

There are many cases of cats killing birds but there are just as many cases of the birds being rescued by the owners, to be nursed back to health and then released. This is a case where the bird ultimately found freedom when the owners intervened.
Teo Lee Wei has two cats in her house. Kitty the tortoise-shell cat and Meatball, the cat with the tuxedo suit and white socks (top). Well, in November 2006 Kitty (above) ran up very furtively to her bedroom with a strange bird in its mouth to be followed by Meatball.

Lee Wei’s husband Kais ran after the cats and managed to prise the bird from Kitty's jaw and took it away. The bird was in deep shock but did not appear to have any injuries (above). It was placed in a bird cage and both of them nursed it for a day (below). They then locked up their two cats before setting the bird free, giving it ample time to make a getaway before releasing the cats again. The strange bird was later identified as the Asian Paradise-flycatcher (Terpsiphone paradisi).

Input and images by Teo Lee Wei.

The cat and the Cinnamon Bittern

Seiko Okajima reported an early morning intruder to her house at Opera Estate in February 2006 thus: “My cat brought in this bird to my house early this morning around 1:00am of Feb 3, 2006. This young bird was not harmed and later flew away safely, but lost some feathers taken by my cat. My house is in Opera Estate off Siglap Road. I've never seen this kind of bird near my house during the day.”

Our bird specialist, R. Subaraj, has this to say: “The bird in the photos is a Cinnamon Bittern (Ixobrychus cinnamomeus). The species is normally found in wetland areas such as flooded fields and marshland. While a small number are resident in Singapore, it is believed that many occur as migrants from northern Asia. During the passage months, when the birds are undergoing migration, different species of migrants turn up at the strangest places, including buildings and homes, probably due to disorientation caused by the bright lights of urban areas.

“As Opera Estate is a suburban area, quite away from the nearest marshy area, this individual is probably a migrant that was undertaking a nocturnal movement (most migrants travel by night). For future reference, it would be a good idea to house such migrants for the night and release them during daylight at the nearest marshland/wetland area. This will minimise the risk of the bird getting further disorientated by the lights at your estate and allow the bird to feed in suitable habitat to recover from both the distant movement and the cat attack before continuing it's travels the next night or so."


Input by Seiko Okajima and R. Subaraj, images by Seiko.

After the above account was posted, Hung Bun Tang sent in the image of a dead Cinnamon Bittern (below) he found near Malcolm Park in the early morning of 9th January this year. He also believes that this species may be more prone to disorientation during nocturnal flights, thus becoming easy victims to attacks by predators. Thanks, Tang.

Cat kill - kingfisher

Cats are notorious for their ability to catch and dismantle birds. Many of us would have seen dead birds with their feathers torn and their bodies ripped apart. But how many of us have actually witnessed a cat kill?

On December 4th 2005 Meng & Melinda Chan actually witnessed a kingfisher being eaten by a cat. Through a pair of binoculars they spotted a kingfisher flying downwards towards the ground. Suddenly a cat jumped up and pounced on the bird. At first they thought that the bird escaped as they saw it flying away. But when they reached the scene, there was a dead kingfisher on the grass. And perching nearby was another kingfisher making alarming calls. Only then did they realize that a pair of birds was involved and one of them fell victim to the cat.

The Chans alerted Ashley Ng as they thought that birders on his Pigeon-holes e-loop might be upset by the incident and the gruesome images they managed to capture on their camera. But birders are tougher than that and so I persuaded Melinda to share the experience and images, and this is how this posting comes about.

Other reports of cat-kill:
Keith Hiller’s cat regularly caught mynas, doves and once even a sunbird. Apparently they just do it for fun, not for food. On the other hand Jeffrey Low’s cat caught an unknown species of bird, ate and regurgitated it. Lim Jun Ying’s pet Spotted Dove (Streptopelia chinensis) was mauled by a cat while still in the cage. On the other hand Jeremy Lee’s experience is a little mysterious. He relates how, when he was a kid he regularly collected headless Javan Munias (Lonchura leucogastroides) decapitated during the night while still in their cage. Was it a cat? An owl perhaps?


Contributed by Meng & Melinda Chan
Additional input by Keith Hiller, Jeffrey Low, Lim Jun Ying and Jeremy Lee

Further comment by R. Subaraj: When I lived in Siglap and had cats as pets, they would bring in a variety of birds. The usual targets would be the Eurasian Tree Sparrows (Passer montanus) (which I observed one of my cats eating twice) and Olive-backed Sunbirds (Nectarinia jugularis). They would also kill the Changeable Lizards and geckoes, also eating the latter. The most surprising bird one of my cats brought in one day was a dead female Pink-necked Green Pigeon (Treron vernans). As this is normally a bird that stays high up in the trees, I can only guess that this individual was ill and vulnerable for it to be caught by a cat.