Mary MacADNski: I trained them from birth to not interfere with the birds so they would never bother them. Chickadees land beside th cats and the cats never bother them. Since I was their mama and they hadn't imprinted on a cat, it was easy.
This reminds me very much of the two sparrows we had on the back of our 1c when we still had it. Something biblical like two sparrows for farthing.
Nice that you teach your cats that way. Problem is that the neighbours don't teach their cats and I hope the chicadees can distinguish a friendly property - otherwise they become easy prey elsewhere.
Mary MacADNski: What is a 1c. Saying about the neighbours - well, I had my girls well trained for years. My daughter moved back home with her cat Clarke (you've seen lots of photos of him). Clarke was not at all trained and thought I'd set out a buffet for him. Meedless to say, I stopped feeding birds for the year and a half we had Clarke.