serafaery

The native songbirds, robins, and chickadees (whose numbers have noticably dwindled in the 30 years I've lived in NE Portland, giving way to the ugly European starlings) are out.

So beautiful. So precious. So shy. So rare.

Finding food after the freeze is finally over, and things are thawing.

And the neighbor's overfed, bored housecat is out hunting them.

:(

We think we're so in touch with the world, cooing to songbirds sweetly and secretly hoping that they understand we find them beautiful and we care about them.

But we're the most destructive, viral, disgusting force on this earth. Their worst enemy, by far. Exterminating them with our carelessness with our pets. Driving over their habitat with our cars.

Awful.

Sigh.

...

Preston asked what I was doing and I explained what I saw and started sobbing.

I don't know what to do. Should I offer my neighbors the Audobon Society brochure about how devastating, far more than any other factor, outdoor cats are to the native bird population? About how domestic cats are the only animal that hunts when it's fully fed? About how there is a 16% survival rate for any bird injured by a cat, because of the nature of their claws and teeth to cause infection?

Or should I just suck it up and realize that nobody gives a shit and never will, unless they decide to educate themselves? And stop crying into my potatoes.

Fuck.