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Comment by jboy55 | Hacker News Reader

The last cat I had that was allowed to go outside was a fearsome mouser, delighted in toying with them and was quite the biology teacher, showing off their inner anatomy to us kids.

However, birds mercilessly teased him as he had no clue how to catch one, surrounding him while he lay on the grass, chirping, then flying just far enough away when he'd move towards them.

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A neighbors cat was being harassed by a bird once. It would dive bomb the cat then fly away quickly. It did this multiple times while I watched. The cat got tired of it after a while and stood perfectly still. The bird swooped down toward it and, just as it was close enough, the cat leapt in the air twisting its body upside down mid leap and grabbed the bird from the air. It was the first time I saw how a normal cat could be such an effective natural killer.

Isn’t this more of an example of “suicide by cat”? My cat gets dive bombed by crows occasionally but I think they are mostly playing on both sides…

Seagulls hang in the air at the Helsinki market square, opportunistically snatching french fries and ice cream and such from tourists. It has occurred to me that any person as focused as that cat could lunge and grab one of these winged vermin out of the air. I myself would not try it because I'd be afraid of losing an eye to a panicking bird with a quite long beak.

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