The Taunting Birds

We live on the third floor of a large apartment complex. We have 2 feet of balcony space. It's just big enough for birds to build their nests in! Which, incidentally, is exactly what has happened every spring that we've lived here.

This year, we're leasing our balcony space to a family of finches. They're lovely birds and Chris and have thoroughly enjoyed the miracle of life as they built their nest, laid their eggs and now the eggs have hatched and we feel a sort of surrogate pleasure in the three fuzzy finch heads that occasionally poke up over the top of the nest.

The Cats are not so happy about this development.

I should mention that Leike was quite the huntress in her day. She brought me field mice and small birds, but if left to her own devices she always chose to catch them, bring them inside, then release them IN THE HOUSE so that she could have a livelier play thing.

Agnes has never hunted anything other than a neon pink toy mouse in her entire life. I like to say she's our little metropolitan kitty.


Which brings us back to the birds.

The cats periodically catch sight of the birds and go into Mighty Hunter Mode (MHM) which is replete with laid back ears, crouch and a strange twitchy hunting cry. Ordinarily, I tell them quietly to leave the birds alone, they're delusional, I'm not letting them outside to intimidate the wee family, and even if I did let them outside they're so accustomed to their life of leisure that they couldn't do anything about it anyway.

Tuesday I saw this. Yep. Those birds have figured out that the Cats CAN'T get to them, and he is standing there, STARING at them through the door and TAUNTING them.

I file this under AWESOME.