Starlings are competing with the feral cats in my front yard. Their days are numbered.
I have loved me some feral cats.
We caught and ‘fixed’ about a dozen of ‘em during our years in Idaho, until we finally caught & spayed the mama of all of them, whom we always called (naturally) Mama, and that put a stop to them as long as we were there.
Her last offspring, a little black cat with a white star on his chest and a four-inch Manx tail, was the final kitty we caught in the live-trap, a week or so after we had caught Mama.
Up until him all the other cats wanted nothing other than to be released, and scram back into the prairie grass. The little black guy-—we called him Hop-—spent his obligatory recovery night (post-surgery) in the mudroom in the little wooden recovery cage I had built, as recommended by the vets.
But when we opened the cage, and the door outside, he took a quick look around and ran INSIDE the house, where it was warm, where it smelled good, where he decided to take up residence with us.
We still have him, six years later. And the people who bought the house from us still have the FIRST of Mama’s offspring, Harley, living under the porch, where we had a heater pad for her, where she took her meals twice a day-—she and her nutless boyfriend Macy lol.
Harley turned NINE this past fall, which is a long time for a feral cat to hang on...she was a great smart wild cat, never let anybody touch her after the vet, is exceedingly wary to this day. We knocked a bunch off the sale price of the house in order that a friend of ours would buy the place, in exchange for a promise that they would take care of Harley, which they have faithfully done.