House wrens have raised babies in a hanging bird house on my porch for 30+ years. I don't know what's going to happen this year when they start taking flying lessons. Bonzi is likely to kill them off one by one. It's awful! Every morning--all day, actually--I watch the parents bringing food to those babies, and I think, God help them when they leave their nest.

If anyone has any ideas for me, please share. Bringing her in the house was impossible. She was/is so seriously territorial and protective of her babies that she would fight with my indoor cats through the windows. This persists today; I have big pieces of cardboard covering the bottom half of the inside windows. Ugly but necessary to prevent battles at the glass. Even so, my male cat, Pogo, is terribly stressed by her much of the time.

Here's one of the wren parents, photographed today.

Moni

A bell isn't going to help the baby birds if they can't escape. Maybe a net or box where they can be safe from the cat would work. When mine left the nest, they just kind of tumbled out and were on the ground behind bushes for a day.

If you give your cat away, another predator will be waiting in the wings (no pun intended) to pounce on the baby birds.

I've been involved with animal welfare for a long time, and am familiar with the cat situation in this area. Giving Bonzi away isn't an option. She came to me, and is my responsibility. I could probably find a farmer who would be happy to open his barn to a spayed mouse hunter, but he wouldn't worm her regularly, or take her to the vet if she were sick. Plus I can't see such a territorial cat doing well in a new environment already populated by other cats.

I've probably presented Bonzi as a total PITA, but she has some appealing qualities. She's quite devoted to me, my son, and my daughter-in-law. She does bite us regularly, but we're convinced she does it out of love. ;-)

As for other predators taking her place should she go, as far as I know all the wren babies over the past three decades have been raised successfully. Once they were on their own, I have no idea what happened to them. But the fact that successive generations keep coming back to the same spot is telling, I think.

I just have to say this: you have no problem with the cat killing mice - and presumably baby mice. Right?

Birds, mice, squirrels, rabbits... They're all food sources for those higher up the food chain. As I said before, it's nature. And nature is cruel. :(

I can't say I have no problem with mouse killing. I can accept clean kills, but it's the suffering that bothers me. Cats often play with their prey--even when the prey is terribly wounded and incapacitated, the cat will toss it about. I have a big problem with that. Yes, I know it's nature, but my nature motivates me to attempt a rescue if the animal is still in good shape, or put an end to its suffering if it is beyond saving. I've done this many times.

Amme

My old cat always used to get nitted at and chased by cardinals. They and stood their ground against the cats around here. A few times Beau would come in with a few pieces of fun missing from the top of his head.

Susan, I realize you can't do that with this cat. Could you put a net under the wren box so when the fledglings drop out they won't be on the ground and high enough that that cat has no access?.