Ever had a bird in the house? Ever wondered how it got in? Ever considered that it might not be via the cat?
My family has lived in our current home for nineteen years. Sure, we’ve had birds in the house before, courtesy of cats, but those are easy to spot because they’re usually wounded. In fact, our first cat, Slink, once brought a baby owl (dead and frozen before he got to it) into a house we rented in a town about three hours drive from where we currently live. Our second cat, Seiki (a nasty, toothless Siamese I immortalized in BORROWING ALEX as Rusty), considered himself quite the Great White Hunter (one of his nicknames). He’d bring maimed birds into the house and then get much joy from watching them flap about trying to get away from him. Lucky for those birds, the family was usually on the ball and saved the bird before Seiki could further torment it. I can’t recall one single bird becoming the cat’s dinner.
Now, we’re on our third cat, Keisha. Otherwise known around the blog as The Evil Entity. She’s not actually evil. She is quite sweet. Behold, evidence:
Come on, admit it. She’s cute!
So, The Evil Entity has a cat door. Our cats have always had cat doors. I grew up with a cat jumping on my window screen in the middle of the night to get in the house. Not fun. Thus, the cat door. It’s accessible from the carport.
Last winter we had to close the cat door for several months, because, sweet as she is, The Evil Entity wasn’t guarding it very well. A big black cat in the neighborhood decided that sneaking into our house in the middle of the night to eat Keisha’s cat food was a fine idea.
Jump to the summer. We decided to open the cat door again. The big black cat seems to have forgotten about it. Good news. The bad news? We have a birdbrain!
Last weekend, while My Liege was busy helping Eldest Son put away his car for the winter, the kitchen door was left open. My Liege was walking by the cat door in the carport and noticed Keisha inspecting said cat door. He realized something was inside the house, pushing back on the cat door, but not strong enough to get out. Keisha wanted to get in, but was unnerved by the pushing on the door.
So. My Liege goes downstairs, and there’s a huge bird—quite healthy, totally unmaimed by a cat—pushing against the cat door in a vain effort to get out. M.L. and E.S. managed to get the bird to fly back out again (after removing a screen from a basement window), but not before the bird tried to dive-bomb E.S. 
What, did he think we were casting for a remake of The Birds?
Okay, bird leaves the house, The Evil Entity, Not Very Evil, can now enter the house again. Everyone is happy. How did the bird enter the house, we wondered? I theorized that E.E. pushed it in through the cat door, but M.L. and E.S. maintained the bird was far too large for E.E. to catch, much less push through a cat door.
All right, I conceded, I guess the bird flew in through the open kitchen door and just happened to fly into the workshop and decide to try to get out again via a cat door.
Meanwhile, My Liege had moved a bunch of freshly chopped kindling into the carport beside the cat door, but no one, not even moi, considered that this wood might have had something to do with the birdbrained bird entering our house.
So. The other day, I take Allie McBeagle outside for a bathroom break. We pass the carport. A huge bird that at this point lives in my imagination as part crow/part magpie because I didn’t get a good look as a result of lowering my head so it wouldn’t Hitchcock me, swept up from near the cat door, wings fluttering madly, and attempted to dive-bomb my head before I screamed and scared it off. The Evil Entity was sitting at the other end of the carport, watching with interest.
That dagnabbed bird, I swear, was trying to get into our house via the cat door. What a birdbrain.
Why would it do such a thing? My guess is that it can smell the freshly cut kindling (can birds smell?), and, look, there’s an opening right next to this nice-smelling wood. Surely, the wood must be a weird tree and the opening a nice door for a bird house.
Except it’s my house, birdbrain! Get the heck out!
Funny story. My cat’s an indoor cat, so we don’t have birds, just mice. She’s a great mouse hunter.
I googled “can birds smell.” Apparently some birds can and they aren’t sure about others. But never fear. Scientists are studying this.
I can’t imagine an indoor cat, Edie. I’ve heard of them, but it’s too hard not to let my cat outside with kids and a dog. Once they’re outside once, that’s it. They’re inside/outside cats.
That’s interesting that some birds can smell! Thanks for doing my research for my lazy ol’ self.