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Cake day: June 14th, 2025

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  • The fluff sticking out of the wing where presumably it was just preening is a great detail. Kind looks like a foot is picked up to help the twisting to reach, too (I know their head swivels impressively, but guessing the leaning down to preen might be more comfortable with a leg lifted.)







  • It’s mostly a safe assumption for wild birds, too, though, and for similar reasons. It’s easier to find a young oblivious bird, or a desperately hungry bird taking a risk in a less protected feeding spot, to snack on if the population is healthy, and when the population is smaller there is less predation because they all fit within the safe feeding areas. If a wild population is large, there will be more deaths due to disease (which spreads faster in crowded conditions), and more deaths from hunger as they outstrip their food sources. If the population is kept in check more by predators than by disease or hunger, it’s generally not a threat to the size of the population.

    There are some specific locations that have certain animal populations actually under threat by domestic cats, but those are almost all ground animals and not birds.


  • Birds that get eaten tend to have high reproductive rates, and if predator levels drop their population gets so high they start to die from hunger or disease (which spreads faster in crowded conditions). Many predators eat an incredible number of animals - a large owl may eat several small birds every day for itself, and a multiple of that if feeding nestlings. Cats aren’t unique here.

    Domestic cats can be a threat to specific populations already endangered by other factors, but usually those are ground animals. Cats being a threat to population levels of birds in most of the world just isn’t believable to me.