Goodbye, brave little blackbird

We've had this young blackbird coming into the garden all summer, and I've watched from the patio as she's grown up from a flightless chick to a fearless juvenile.

Every morning she was out there, digging for worms on the lawn under the watchful eye of the three cats, who seemed to have accepted that as much as they liked to stalk her, she would always be too quick for them.

Her bravery knew no bounds - there she would be pecking away at the lawn mere feet away from the cats, engrossed in her worms. I would walk over to try to shoo her away sometimes and she would wait until I was within touching distance before she flew off to a nearby tree. 'You're too friendly,' I would think, but figured her instincts would protect her.

I don't know how it happened or exactly when, but it would have been some time yesterday, because last night I went to put something away in the shed and could see the youngest cat transfixed by movement near the garden light, which was casting a shadow onto the palm trunk nearby. That shadow had a primal movement about it, something you don't see often.

I went to find out what it was and there was the oldest cat, chewing on the remains of the little blackbird. By this time all that was left was a pair of wings and a foot, I can't even be totally sure it was her. I buried her with a lump in my throat and a degree of denial. If it had been another bird it would have been awful, but it wouldn't have been her.

But today there has been no sign, no singing in the trees, no flutter as she descends to the lawn. I've spent more time than usual looking out towards the garden today, and it seems eerily quiet.

We love cats and being the selfish individuals we are, we impress human personalities upon them. I can't look at Neville right now, I consider him a murderer and I find it difficult to forgive the needless waste of a life.

But cats are animals and birds are instinctively their prey. They are cunning, too. Just as a lion will lull an antelope into a false sense of security over a matter of weeks or maybe months at the watering hole by just being there and seemingly doing nothing, all the time calculating that perfect moment to strike, so too will a cat trick a bird.

That blackbird had seen the cats there in the garden every day since the day it first arrived, when it was merely weeks old. The cats had no need to go chasing and alerting the bird to their intentions, when all they needed to do was wait until the bird was totally comfortable in their presence. Neville is an old cat, he doesn't do anything energetic. If the kill hadn't been easy he wouldn't have bothered.

I mourn that little bird, that is why I have written this post. But I am trying to remind myself that this is nature, it is the way it goes sometimes. Especially when you domesticate a predator.

It's not the cat's fault any more than it is the bird's for being so brazen.

All the same, I wish I could have been there to stop it.

UPDATE: On Sunday Lizzie called me out to the garden. There on the lawn was the little blackbird, pecking away for worms and again the cats were watching it intently. My heart skipped a beat and a cloud lifted from above me but it does raise one pressing question: If it wasn't the little blackbird who met a sticky end, then who was it? We've had a robin visit the garden recently and it could have been that, but I just remember the remains seeming to belong to a bigger bird. We will never escape the undeniable fact that a bird has been killed, but the blackbird is alive and as cheeky as ever, and for that I am incredibly thankful.