Monday morning is not the morning you want to find a dead body in your backyard.

But we can’t choose when death comes a knock, knock, knocking on our deck door, can we?

There she lay, near the house, tucked into the weeds. The body of one of my friendly, little gray finches. But just the body. Her cleanly decapitated head lay nearby.

Friends, I am preternaturally sensitive to an animal being injured, killed or just generally in pain. Birds, dogs, raccoons, turtles, goats, chickens, even fish. I have been known to get up and leave a conversation that turned into a tale of an injured or murdered animal. I have only one conversational boundary: Please do not tell me a story where the animal dies or gets hurt.

Clearly, I cannot watch animal documentaries. Or “Bambi,” “Old Yeller,” “Marley & Me” or “Where the Red Fern Grows.”

My mom’s former beloved once thought it was congenial to share photos from his life, including the poor pig slow roasting over a pit at a pig roast. I didn’t know it was coming so I didn’t look away in time. My mom scolded him. A former beau insisted on showing me a photo of him carrying like a backpack the dead wild pig he’d hunted and killed with his bare hands. I repeatedly said no. He begged. It was ghastly. I didn’t shed one tear when he exited my life stage left, and I’ll cry at most anything.

Which is what I did that Monday morning, minutes before I left for work, after I found the little carcass. I donned my gardening gloves, picked up her body and head, and sobbed.

What or who could have done this? I had three suspects, who’ve been casing the joint all summer.

Suspect A) The sketchy gray cat with the golden eyes who hides in the weeds by my sprawling lemon balm bush, eyeballing the bird feeders. He scatters quickly when I pound on the kitchen window or scurry outside to give him a talking to.

Suspect B) The white and black cat who forced my hand at tree trimming when she crouched under a large canopy of suckers while also staring down said feeders. I’ve also seen Suspect B slide onto the seed-covered ground under the feeders like a baseball player stealing third. And this feline doesn’t take off when I yell and wave my arms at her. She takes her sweet time lollygagging out of the yard, thumbing her nose at me in that way only cats can. I could probably even pick her up and give her a cuddle, but I refuse to consort with a potential assassin.

Suspect C) The blue jays that squawk their arrival a few minutes before landing. I bore witness a few years ago to a jay holding down a smaller bird in my backyard and pecking at it in a fair imitation of decapitation. Another dreadful sight. Thankfully, I was able to perform a heroic rescue in that case. The National Wildlife Federation has dubbed jays, European starlings, pigeons, blackbirds and crows as bully birds. I didn’t want to believe it, but one can’t argue with cold hard evidence.

My mom suggested apprehending Suspects A and B and adorning them with bells, so at least the birds might get a warning. I could probably wrangle Suspect B and give her a new necklace, but not her cagey buddy.

To avenge my sweet finch’s life, my plan is: Canvass the neighborhood, bring the suspects in for a lineup, and invite all the other birdies in the yard — the Eurasian collared doves, chickadees, nuthatches, flickers, bushtits — to ID the perp. I’m thinking 30 years to life for murder. This was no manslaughter. This was murder with intent to kill.

But I need to do my due diligence first. Googling “did a blue jay decapitate another bird in my yard” pulls up the 2020 YouTube video titled “Blue jay decapitated another bird.” I did not watch that horror movie.

Googling “greatest killer of birds” elicits the text box: “Cats — When it comes to causes of death for wild birds, cats are in a category of their own. Cats are by far the top killer of wild birds, not including natural deaths, in the U.S.” That’s according to the Wild Bird Scoop website, which goes on to say the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2017 estimated cats kill between 1 billion and almost 4 billion birds every year.

Friends, much to my regret, I must interrupt this column. This soliloquy was edited when what to my horrified eyes should appear but Suspect A with a bird in his mouth. I’m loathe to even write this, as I’ll have to relive a sight that cannot be unseen.

But there I sat, at my kitchen table, in the early hours of the last Friday in August. The sun hadn’t fully risen, but there was a gentle gray bird calmly nibbling fallen seed in my yard. I suddenly heard a scuffle, turned and made full eye contact with killer cat and his prey. I wonder if my neighbors heard my wails of grief and anger.

Thus began an even greater attempt to foil jerk cats, though the jury’s still out on who decapitated the other bird. Please don’t come at me with your kitty love right now; you’re talking to the wrong girl.

There is now decorative metal yard fencing encircling about an 8-foot area around my feeders, bird baths and fallen seed. Cats will still get through or over it, but I hope to slow them down and give the bird at least a slight advantage. I also whacked the weeds and trimmed my lemon balm up off the earth, disposing of kitty’s hiding spot.

And then my tiny, one-eyed pup ran pell-mell into said fencing. In an effort to preserve his last and final eye, I tied old clothing around part of the wiring so he’d see and avoid it. If he keeps running into it, I’ll tear the whole thing down. I might even be forced to give up feeding the birds for a while, until the whiskered butchers move on.

This whole debacle really adds kerosene to my fire. I don’t know if these two cats have homes where they curl up with their humans after a day of bloodlust. I’ve had cats and can’t imagine letting them out in the world on their own, where predators lurk around every corner, distracted drivers cruise freely, cat haters might feel inclined to do them harm, and cat gangs might jump them.

And what of the cats who bring home their desiccated prizes to proffer their love to their humans? Can we consider said humans accomplices in bird murder? I think we can. And should.

Hold my hand and help me crawl up onto my soapbox: Keep your cats inside, people. Do it for our beautiful bird population that’s in dire straits. And for me, your teary bird-loving neighbor who doesn’t need anymore tragic visuals to haunt her mind forever.

“In less than a single human lifetime, 2.9 billion breeding adult birds have been lost from the U.S. and Canada, across every ecosystem and including familiar birds,” reported American Bird Conservancy. “To put it another way, we’ve lost more than a quarter of our birdlife since 1970.”

And if anybody’s working on an ankle bracelet to keep cats on house arrest, I’ll help you fundraise.

Contact the writer: 636-0270

Could this cat kill backyard birds? Let’s not find out.

TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

After finding a decapitated finch in her backyard, a Gazette reporter rounds up suspects, cats and blue jays being No. 1 and 2 on the list.

Jerilee Bennett, The Gazette

Outdoor cats wreak havoc on the bird population across the globe.

the associated press

Gazette reporter Jennifer Mulson attempts to foil backyard cats and their bird murdering ways.

jennifer mulson, the gazette