Having the dawn chorus of birdsong in your own house now that's something preposterous. But it happened the other day in Rathmines, Dublin. A woman awoke at about five in the morning to a brilliant outburst of song. She listened with delight for a short while, then realised that it was too near. It was just outside the bedroom and in her house. She went into the hall and found, perched in the fanlight, a robin singing its heart out.
How could it be? There were no windows open. Then she looked round and saw her two gurrier cats glaring at the bird. She realised that one of them had brought it in through the cathole in the back door. She picked up a very light cloth, stood on a stool and gently threw it over the bird. It was no trouble to take it down, delicately held it to the door to the garden and slowly open the folds. She was prepared to stand there for some time in case the bird had been a bit mauled by the cat. But there didn't seem to be a feather ruffled. The bird took off without effort or hesitation: back to join the morning chorus. When the woman went back to the hail, she found the two cats sitting on the stool, foolishly looking at the spot where the robin had been.
Not all cats are as ineffectual as killers. A few miles away, towards the mountains, another woman was awakened by a cat. Not by dint of birdsong, but by a thump and a snarl and the sound of a rabbit in its last throes. The cat, a Burmese (well known killer breed), had brought it in by the cathole in the window of the second floor bedroom. Not large by any standard, this feline had climbed up the clematis covered trellis, carrying in its mouth this rabbit. We needn't go into the details of the state of the corpse when the husband got up, opened the window and threw it far, then pushed the villain out through the cathole. All the proceedings had been watched by two other pet Burmese and one of the ordinary gurrier breed.