It’s not just the cats...

I would like to support Sharon Painter’s letter (Bird Watching, Autumn). As an owner of two cats, I am under no illusion that these natural predators of mine must have taken some birds, despite my efforts to mitigate this. But the overall number of birds that have flourished and survived over winter due to the £30 a month spent on sunflower hearts in eight feeders has had an overall positive effect. It seems the poor old moggy is under the cosh here, but let’s not forget all those days out where we’ve spent hours in a country park or reserve to hear someone pathetically calling their woefully disobedient Fido that then knocks over your tripod, crashes through nest sites, eating whatever it can, totally out of sight of the usually unconcerned owner who also feels that every pond, lake or wetland is a swimming pool for his or her loved mutt. Only yesterday, I witnessed a child and his father feeding the ducks and swans on the bank of a lake, only to have the whole scene crashed by a dog that was off the lead and clearly badly behaved, which risked the wildfowl and scared the child to the point of spoiling his day. I don’t think cats are the issue here, more the unthinking, careless, ‘everything is the dogs’ playground’ attitude of most dog owners.