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The magpies did give her a fair amount of grief but she just kept doing it.



Other birds taunted her a bit, tapping the window whne she was inside:



unfortunately she knew where they lived and had a few goldcrests for dinner. Which was a shame, we don't get too many of them.

Mr.Gumby wrote:

Unless there are young in the nest (judging by the trees, I suspect it's too early yet), that unusual situation has nothing directly to do with hunting; it has either to do with competition, or plain dislike. Here the magpie superficially appears to have the advantage: it's fully aware of the cat, it is shielded by branches, and it can easily get away any time it wants. Of course the cat knows this. But that's not the essence of the matter. The cat's making no attempt at stealth; rather, she's blatantly presenting herself as a very real menace to the nesting site, which she can get to with ease, and she has the will to withstand the magpies' attempts to drive her off. This tells me there's a territorial dispute going on, because we see the magpie daring to defy the cat, and while the cat's orientation here is on the bird, that is simply a way of saying, "I hope you're paying attention," for the nest is the real pawn in this game. Otherwise, why go to the trouble to get so near it unless you hear nestlings peeping? That would be the usual way of the hunt. Instead, we're seeing a moment of communication where all the cards are laid out on the table. By stopping at the nest, the cat's giving the magpies fair warning of what is to come if they stay.

In other words, it's a shot across the bow. Rather civil of her, don't you think?

When I lived in MA the landlords cat left gifts all the time. Small critters like lizards or mice. Always left in tidy, perfect rows. Some people call these Love Offerings. But another theory holds that the cat saying, "You are a lousy hunter so I'll provide for you."

My current cat has never done this. He is well provided for and knows I provided for too.

Michael w6 wrote:Some people call these Love Offerings. But another theory holds that the cat saying, "You are a lousy hunter so I'll provide for you."

I prefer to think of them as the former, but I'm the first to say that every cat is different, so in the end who knows what an individual's motivations might be? I think it's too simplistic, and a mistake, to look for one easy explanation. You'd think it would be obvious to the cat that I have no trouble providing - every household cat knows food comes from bags, and I'm always lugging 'em home - but OTOH some cats are better at arriving at abstract conclusions than others. Some cats actually seem to have a sense of reciprocity, so maybe some of them are just doing their part by helping out the best way they know how. And of course, depending on the cat, maybe I am just a lousy hunter. Or maybe the cat's just leaving proof that it's worth its salt; the human/cat partnership was first based on their hunting mice around the granaries, after all, so it's possible there's some genetic memory where "professional pride" might be involved, such that being a good hunter earns a home and shelter. In the end I still think it means they care, whatever the rest of the plot.