There seems to be an interesting relationship between coons, cats, and
coyotes! Where we lived in Ravenna, our cats caught many fewer birds. They
didn't go out much at night because of the presence of a very aggressive
family of raccoons, who would even come in the house (through the cat door)
and eat their food!

Now that we live more in the 'burbs, our cats catch a lot more birds. They
seem to do this mostly in the pre-dawn and post-sunset hours, and catch a
lot of mice and shrews then, too. Of course they also catch some birds
during the day. We have no raccoons, a circumstance which surprised me
until I realized it was the coyotes keeping the raccoons in check!. I just
hope the coyotes don't decide to keep our cats in check (although I fully
realize this may happen someday). I also think our cats catch more birds
here because in Ravenna everything was landscaped and the birds kept more to
the trees. Here we have tree-oriented birds but we also have a lot more
wild shrubs and grasses and hence more ground-nesting and ground-feeding
birds, which makes them more vulnerable to cats.

Teresa Michelsen
Inglewood, King County
temi461 at ecy.wa.gov
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>Any comments from those in the know about how much of a problem raccoons
are
>for birds? And for those repressing (or not) comments about cats, I have
seen
>mine catch one bird (a House Sparrow at that) in 9 months.

>More pointedly, what's the comparison of bird predation between 'coons and
>cats?