Cat - mobbing.

At 6.50 this morning I was woken by continuous charr-charr-charr cries which I knew to be a magpie alarm call. My window looks over the garden and I saw a large cat there being strafed by two screaming magpies, at least five starlings and the male blackbird. I’ve never heard of birds of different species doing this. The magpies seemed to be luring the cat out of the garden by perching close to it and moving away further as it got nearer. They coaxed it on to the garage roof in this fashion but the cat appeared to be uneasy and started descending and heading garden-wards. One of the magpies did a curious thing then; it thumped at the top of the fence post, like a woodpecker, three times, seeming to be attracting the cats attention. This happened twice but the cat jumped down into the garden. The birds then started to fly towards and above it, screeching all the while, the male blackbird hopped a distance away under the shrubbery and the cat ran at him. The magpies crashed into the shrubs and the next thing I know, the cat has leapt up the wall and the magpies are chasing it. I don’t know where it went but the magpies still made their alarm calls for a good two minutes before stopping.

As far as I know, only the blackbirds are nesting in the hedge and the magpies visit the garden on their patrols of the neighbourhood, similarly the starlings. I could see why the blackbird might alarm call at the cat but not the other birds as they have nothing to protect. I am guilty of anthropomorphic thinking at times but I just can’t fathom this out. But moving to a house with a garden is entertaining, I must say, it is allowing us to see lots of activity. The other afternoon the rat I mentioned in another post, or one of his chums, was seen chasing a baby sparrow, which luckily fluttered onto a high branch and then a wood pigeon flapped at the rat, which darted under the garden gate and away. Please forgive me if I’m relaying behaviours that are fairly commonplace but I’m a newbie at this observation and find it fascinating.