I woke up at 4am to the sound of our two parakeets, Thunder and Clover, going crazy.
My daughter calls it “helicoptering,” when they frantically flap their wings and fly all around like the world is coming to an end. Usually it happens when I put my hand in the cage to refill their food, but occasionally it also happens in the middle of the night. When it does, the cats are always close by. I’m not sure if the cats are giving the birds extra attention, which then freaks the birds out, or if the birds are freaking out about something else which catches the cats’ attention.
I don’t know who to blame.
The bird cage is large, and there are many places the birds can safely perch without the cats being able to reach them – and even a corner behind a little wall where the birds normally sleep and where the cats can’t see them at all.
When the birds freak out, though, they have the habit – in all of their infinite bird-brained wisdom – of latching on to the front wall of the cage. Right where one errant swipe of a cat paw could get their tummies and end it all.
This morning, I had extra reason to worry.
Yesterday, one of the cats (we unanimously assume it was Rosie, the feisty one) caught a bird and brought it into the house. Dead bird body in the hallway and feathers EVERYWHERE! Despite this being typical cat behavior, it’s rare here. Our cats don’t go outside except into a contained “cat space” that’s attached to the back of the house and accessible through a bathroom window. So one of the sweet little birds that hangs out in our backyard in the winter must have flown into the cat space through the metal fencing at just the wrong time.
And we’ve been feeding squirrels on the back deck while there is snow on the ground. The cats watch through the back window mere inches away from the squirrels going to town on their sunflower seeds and peanuts, so I’m sure the cats’ predatory instincts have been all sorts of fired up.
Worried about Thunder and Clover, I built a wall around the bird cage with cereal boxes to deter the cats and went back to bed. Within minutes, I heard the cereal boxes hit the floor, one by one.
I tried again. Again, the cereal box wall fell rapidly to the floor. (Rosie! I know that’s you!!!)
So I covered the bird cage with a dark sheet to get the birds out of sight, even if they insisted on staying firming attached to the front of the cage, and then put the cereal boxes around that. That worked well enough. One of the cats pulled down part of the sheet, but the hair clips I used to keep it in place did the trick.
I was able to get back to sleep but when the alarm went off much too soon after. I hit the snooze button for an hour. I did NOT want to get up. I’d still rather be asleep. So much for making progress on my morning routine. That’s the thing about routines, though, right? That even the best plans don’t always work out, and you just have to roll with it.
Or something like that.
But I got my daughter to school on time (barely), a big deal after my parenting failure two weeks ago, and both Thunder and Clover survived the night, so I’m claiming victory. And treating myself to a much needed latte.