When I was a child living in Slovakia, one hard winter crows swooped in and killed our cats. I live in the UK now and it is the middle of summer, but this memory still haunts me. There is a jay (crow in fancy dress), which has been sitting on the fence and observing my kittens. The kittens are nearly 5 months old. Should I worry, or am I just being paranoid? Has anyone had an experience of birds attacking cats?

I had a 12 week old kitten that was killed by a hawk. He was too heavy for the bird to fly away with so dropped him and broke his neck. Poor little thing had nasty cuts on his little body from it´s talons.

What an interesting topic!! Alfred Hitchcock´s film "The Birds" sprang into my mind....

There is (or maybe was) a TV program called America´s Funniest Videos and one video showed a bird attacking a cat, but the bird was too small to do any damage other than startle the cat and cause it to flee at full speed.

Do you have really big jays in England? The bluejays in Canada are about the size of a robin and although they´re noisy and brazen, I doubt one jay could harm a 5 month old kitten.

Our jays are about 2x the size of our robins. About half the size of a crow. I think they are quite aggressive. Perhaps they could not kill a 5 months old kitten, but could still deliver a mean peck.

Those are big jays you have!! I just read an article that said jays will attack anything, even a human, that approaches their nest. They don´t hunt live prey so the kittens would be safe in that sense, but it might be a good idea to see if there´s a nest around the house or the little ones might indeed get hurt if they get too close.

I am sure there is a nest nearby but not direct;y in our garden. I think my dog might have something to say about it, if a big bird flew into our garden We live in a bird sanctuary area, so there are many birds, which is nice, most of the tme

And you 5555, what a horrible experience for you! I bet you are no fan of hawks now.

Oldwoman I think they are beautiful birds to look at but I really don´t like to see them flying over my back yard.
I use to have a pet magpie and a pet crow. Even though they were friendly and played with the cats I was always scared they would peck their eyes accidently. My magpie was very territorial and would rush at any stray cat that came in our yard snapping her beak. I have no doubt that it would cause injury to the poor things if she had caught them. She could make human vivitors she didn´t like bleed like anything!!
So I wouldn´t trust a bird.

persia hates birds,they used to chase her in the backyard of my old house.one actually chased her inside an open window!

I suppose around nesting time they could be quite aggressive. My Parent´s cat refused to go outside for a few weeks earlier this year while the blackbirds had babies, because they kept attacking him. They never really harmed him, just frightened him half to death. It all settled down again once the babies were gone (a young seagull one of the neighbour´s had been feeding got all territorial and killed them all. )

Where I live we have a big problem with seagulls nesting on people´s roofs. While they had their young to look after it was a nightmare for me taking Barney out in the morning, because they´d swoop down at us repeatedly, usually just missing the top of my head.

We have had a real infestation of starling nesting in our loft. They seemed harmless, apart from the hygene point of view. But there are magpies, jays and crows, which I find quite scary. We do have gulls as well, but they mainly make do with eating garbage.

The day before yesterday I observed Rangoon making his patrol round in the garden. Just behind him walked a magpie - I had the feeling it wanted to pick his tail. Those are rather nasty birds and often hunt in pack - i saw once a pack of magpies attacking a buzzard. Since it was a lonely magpie I didn´t rush to the rescue but just called the cat - the magpie flew away at once - perhaps it had really a cat meal in mind?

Yes, magpies can be quite nasty and they do attack in packs.

We have magpies in Alberta that can be quite aggressive - especially in gangs (I suppose that should be flocks but they make me think of tough street kids). We also have crows, ravens and even in the city, falcons. I also lived in Banff (a National Park) for a time where it´s actually illegal to chase or frighten (or even trash talk) the wildlife, so people find creative ways to harmlessly keep them out of gardens.

If you regularly let your cats outside where predatory (or just plain mean) birds also live, try hanging bells, windchimes, windsocks, pinwheels or other bright and wind sensitive ornaments in and around your garden - especially at the tops of fences or in trees. The colourful movement and noise might keep the birds away.

Thanks for the tip MichyD, I was thinking if some kind of a scarecrow, but a windmill would be good.

Yes birds do attack cats. This was actually quite funny one of my cats that I used to have would sit on our front porch and this mockingbird would fly down and try to swoop down and attack my cat like fly bomb my cat it was kind of funny b/c my cat would try and run from the bird and the bird would actually follow my cat then my cat would hide under the car and the bird would actually go under the car as well with the cat....that bird was definately not afraid of my cat and my cat would meow at it and i knew she wanted it but was scared of it as well....it was kinda funny but sad that my cat would run from it