There are some places where seeing dinosaur descendants would be an everyday occurrence--your back yard, Sesame Street (which has one of the Big variety), the aviary at the San Diego Zoo--but my living room is not one of them. Thus it was notable this evening that I suffered an invasion by not zero, not one, but two animals of the feathered variety in Casa Transterrestrial.

The disconsertion was amplified by the fact that it occurred during dinner, which was occurring in the living room, during a Simpsons rerun, Patricia being up in Reno and thus unable to protect me from the beaky predators as I innocently munched my chicken nachos (were they, Hitchcock-like, lying in wait for me, as I ate their distant cousin?).

I was first alerted to the avian intruders by Jessica. Jessica is the younger cat, who has misleadingly gangly legs, and black fur with a white undercoat, and who seems much too uncoordinated to deal with flying prey.

The elder cat, Stella, is a premiere ratter, having dispatched all the rodents who temporarily took up abode in the garage after discovering my stash of malt and corn sugar, set aside as brewery inputs after I discovered that beer was unacceptably carbohydratic for my newly-discovered relatively paleolithic protein-rich diet. But I've never seen her catch a bird, and I suspect that, at age thirteen, her hunting days may be behind her.

Anyway, Jessica was making that peculiar moaning sound, familiar to cat owners, of a cat in pure, unadulterated hunting mode. She was looking up toward the cathedral, wood-beam ceiling at a fluttering apparition in the beams. I saw the motion myself, and went to turn on the track lights to view it better.

It was a hummingbird, frantically beating itself against the ceiling between the beams, attempting to find a way to freedom. Its wings were beating at approximately thirty-four thousand flutters per second. It was clear that it was going to run out of energy in a matter of short minutes at its current rate.

Don't ask me how it got in--I don't know now, and I never will.

The ceiling is high on that end of the room. The front door was just below, however, so I opened it. It was late, but the sun wasn't down, so I hoped that the light coming in would draw it to the Great Outdoors.

Fortunately, after a few minutes, it did indeed come down toward the door. But it didn't go out. It beat itself against the narrow wall between the open front door and the entrance to the kitchen, in which it perhaps had fantasies of endless supplies of sugar water with which to power its frantic wings.

I gently brushed it toward the open door with my hand and, panicked, it found the opening, exited, and quickly increased altitude. Unlike the living room, it was ceiling unlimited.

Relieved, I sat down to finish my chicken nacho consumption.

Then Jessica started crying and pawing at the fireplace. Now what?

I heard another fluttering of wings in the hearth.

Great. Another bird had flown down the chimney, and was beating itself up in the flue, or in the logs on the grate. The cat was going nuts trying to get to it, and I couldn't see any way to persuade it to go back up the chimney, or to head outside.

As I sat there, trying to figure out what to do, Jessica finally managed to frighten it into flying out of the fireplace, and toward the glass patio doors in the living room. It was hiding and fluttering in the vertical blinds.

I opened up the door all the way, and got the cat away from it.

Like the hummingbird, I gently brushed it toward the door opening. It found the exit, and fluttered up and away.

Jessica looked up at me, disappointed. She whined a little, and then went outside.

I finished dinner.

Oh ye of little feline knowledge! Hearken unto me and learn the ways of cat communication.

That was not a look of disappointment. That was a look of disgust. A look of "How could you even think of preventing me from catching and eating (on your living room rug) not one but TWO (count 'em, TWO) perfectly delightful and fascinating objects which were clearly ordained by the Feline Goddess for my entertainment and consumption?" A look of "What are you, stupid or something? The actual presence of two birds wasn't a big enough hint that it was both dinnertime and play time for me?"

Check the cap on your chimney. There should be a screen over it which will let smoke escape but keep animals out. If birds can get in, raccoons are next, and you do NOT want a raccoon in your home.

I don't even want a raccoon in my yard--it would have a fish feast with the pond.

I've never seen a coon here (I'm in a densely-populated beach city just south of LA) but I've heard of them in the next town over. We do get possums, though.

Don't underestimate the hunting power of your seasoned feline. Spoons once had a cat who was so old an arthritic that he couldn't manage the stairs anymore -- yet he still managed to get a few mice every year, and he made life difficult for baby squirrels, as well.

Birds are a whole 'nother problem for cats, as they move in three dimensions, whilst cats are basically limited to two (aside from the occasional leap).

Nezumi-chan has never caught a bird, and has never seemed to seriously try (running at a bird from thirty feet away, on a lower terrace, is NOT a serious attempt in my book). She DID once charge full tilt into a flock of grackles; when they rose up and flew away she suddenly realized that she was outnumbered by about 300:1, and spent the next twenty minutes hiding under a bush.

Jessica is a good birder (unfortunately), which made her all the more upset.

I've often speculated on just what a dangerous creature a flying cat would be. After all, if mice can develop wings (most bats), and primates can (foxbats), why not felines?

>> I've never seen a coon here (I'm in a densely-populated beach city just south of LA)

I regularly see racoons and possums in my neighborhood in downtown San Jose, CA. (No skunks, yet.) The coons seem to have a regular route that includes various dumpsters and outside pet food bowls. (The daylight savings time shifts upset their schedule.)