why do cats do this? it seems like if there were hunting this would ruin the hunt. my cat does it when he hides behind flower pots while bird watching from indoors.
I know this is a small sample size but I’ve never had any of my outdoor cats do that, only the indoor ones.
Our cat does it all the time when looking at birds on our bird feeders. I love it, and the link…really funny stuff. From a Vet Site:
It’s excitement overload.
It may be that. It could also be frustration; they can see the prey, but they can’t. Quite. Reach it. Other theories suggest it’s emulating the way cats bite the back of the neck of their prey to kill it.
I’m very curious about this. Some of the cats I’ve lived with do it; some don’t. And it doesn’t depend on the cat being a “hunter” personality: the fuzzy black land shark who lives in my house right now doesn’t chatter at all, and I regularly find decapitated rodents in the yard.
Mine don’t do that, but we do get a throaty growl when they spot something outside that they can’t kill.
I’d heard that (can’t remember source - vet maybe?) it is what they’d be doing if they got a hold of the bird. A cat wants to first either bite the beak off, or decapitate the bird so it won’t get pecked.
My five year old female does this when looking out the window at birds. She’s an inside cat, and I always thought it was just frustration because she can’t get at the bird-burgers. (and she won’t eat chicken!)
A Vet on a radio call-in show once fielded this question, saying the cat, visually alerted by prey on the other side of the glass, but mysteriously unable to smell it, does this to get a better olfactory response.
It’s also called a “hunting call” and honestly we don’t know exactly why. It is possible that it is to call other cats to help- domestic cats do sometimes naturally group into mini- “prides”.
“One of the most intriguing characteristics of domestic cat social organization is the fact that, like lions, these diminutive felids are able to live in social groups when conditions are right. Food seems to be the key factor favoring group living, and it is notable that all the documented incidences of domestic cats living in groups occur at clumped, abundant, artificial food sources such as dairy farms or garbage dumps.”
When our cats used to do this back at our old apartment, we called it the “frustrated noise”. They only did it when they couldn’t get at something. They never did it when play attacking inside. They never did it later, when we allowed them outside on walks, and they attacked (and sometimes killed and ate) prey. It always was associated with an inability to get at some nearby and (were it not for that damned window!) reachable target.
Ours does it. We thought it sounded funny and began using it as a “cat laugh” when speaking for the cat in a…er…cat voice. I’ve said too much.
Mine would do it when the bug they were trying to murder insisted on flying just out of reach. I think it’s kitty profanity, myself.
May as well post this one…
Once in awhile a gecko will get in, and three of our four cats will do this. They’ll sit by the wall and stare at the lizard and make that sound. It’s comical. Then I have to catch the lizard and put it back outside so as to remove it from danger. That’s not so comical.
My cat would do this when the moth she was after got up near the ceiling. She would sit under it, tail lashing, trilling her hunting cry. I figured she was trying to call the moth down to her and it would never work, but what the heck? It did work. Eventually the moths flew straight toward her.
(Oh boy, it’s almost moth season.)
Gee, thanks for the nightmares.
My cat does this, only:
a) She vocalizes a lot more when she does it–it sounds like she’s chirping; and
b) She mainly does it when I sneeze. Especially if she was sleeping and I sneeze.
I always thought she was scolding me.
Daniel