My cat Cookie Monster has an endearing habit: when she sees something she wants to kill, she makes the weirdest of noises. It’s a sort of elongated “wiwiwiwiwiwiwiwiwi” noise, and is accompanied by her clacking her teeth together with a “chackachackachackachacka”*.
According to my cat book, this noise is “an expression of frustration”. However, she doesn’t do this when she’s the wrong side of a door, or can’t have any more food - it’s only when she wants to hunt. Yet this noise would surely alert prey to the presence of the cat, so I can’t see it having any particular evolutionary advantage, unless it’s to coordinate the pride, perhaps? However, my three former cats never made this noise, which might scotch that theory.
So does anyone know of any other theories as to the reason for this habit?
Even more endearing just now when her chattering was interrupted by an unexpected yawn. “Chackachacka wiwiwiwiwiwiiiiiiiiIIIIIIaaaaaaauuuuuuuw!!!” She looked incredibly surprised.
I imagine it results from your cat being raised indoors. Pure speculation, but I would think that an outdoor cat that relies on successful hunts for food would quickly learn that making noise prior to striking will cause it to fail. Being raised inside it may be that you cat never picked this trait up.
We used to call that the “Machine Gun Meow” as our old beastie would make a very quiet tremelo sound, like: “eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh!” Sometimes it was so subtle that you could only tell that he was doing it because his whiskers would vibrate strangely.
It also happened only when his “prey” was where he couldn’t get it e.g. when the lazer pointer was aimed at the ceiling.
In addition to Amanita’s suggestion that it’s related to the kill bite, I would also speculate that it’s a somewhat involuntary vocalization of excitement that the cat is trying to stifle so as not to alert the prey.
Certainly our big, ol’ beastie seemed to be wanting to make a ruckus so that we’d help him get closer to the out-of-reach “prey” – a fly above the door – but was more or less “whispering” his stuttered “There’s the fly wanna get it! There’s the fly wanna get! There’s the fly wanna get it!”
Our also indoor cat mostly makes the chit-chit-chit noise when she’s inside looking out through the picture window. (Though she never expresses a desire to go outside when she’s doing this.) When she is outside, her normal tactic appears to be: stare fixedly at the desired prey, shift back and forth until you’re really ready… really ready… really ready… and then the thing takes off and you missed your chance. She did catch a huge dragon fly once, but I’m pretty sure it was almost dead already. Hunting instincs are not her strong suit.