Cloth nappies and dead birds

I was just outside hanging up the cloth nappies to dry (you know it's summer when you can hang clothes out at 3 pm and bring them in at 6 pm and they're bone dry. Gotta love it!) and almost stepped on a dead baby bird. Ick.

We have a plethora of birds that live around our house, in the many trees in our yard and in the yards of our neighbours. They also like to hang around on the gutters of our roof, making little click-click-click noises early in the morning. These beautiful little birds (I love listening to them when I get up in the morning to pray), unfortunately, attract all the neighbourhood cats. I don't mind that the cats come in our yard because they're peaceful and we don't have a cat that would then need to protect its' territory (not sure about that last apostrophe). BUT... what happens when a cat finds birds? IT WANTS TO EAT THEM. Or at least play deadly games with them. I'm afraid that a cat found a nest and decided to play with the helpless little birdies while their mother had gone out to find food. I gingerly moved the dead little birdie (so young it had no feathers) with a laundry peg away from the main playing area. The last thing I want to hear today is "Mommy, why doesn't this bird have any feathers?"