Bobolinks

On Sunday I spoke with two birders who had stopped at the trailhead near our house.  They told me they had seen bobolinks in the hay field at the top of the hill.  Last night Linda and I walked up the road and into the field.  Sure enough, there they were; a male and a female.  I haven’t seen a bobolink since I was a kid on the farm.  

This morning I saw a feral cat right in front of our house.  Is there a connection?  Of course.  Millions of song birds are killed every year by cats.  They are killed not only by feral cats, but by house cats that are allowed to roam.  If your pet cat killed just one bird last year, multiply that by the millions of cats in the U.S.  You can see the problem.  

I like cats, but I like birds more.  I don’t understand why people value certain species like cats and dogs over other species like birds and small mammals.  All of them are important to our ecosystem.