Making Flippy Floppy

Since Ling-Ling's collar bell fell off a few weeks ago it's been dead bird hell around this house. Without the gentle but effective tinkle to scare them away they're going down, and fast. It started with a bang when one evening she brought in a terrible, withery looking thing, just a baby chick, dead and cold and placed it under my feet at my desk. I don't know why I always get mad because the cat just glares at me with prideful detachment as she wanders away, suddenly disinterested, leaving me to deal with the carnage. And I do, carefully picking up the poor thing with plastic grocery bags, then tied tight and taken out all the way to the alley trash. An hour or so later it happened again like deja vu, and since she has been known to somehow get in the alley trash and bring them back for a return visit, I assumed this is what happened. Imagine my horror when I discovered the other dead bird was still there. This struck me as odd because usually it just takes one bird for her to get her daily fix. Flash foward a few hours and it's bedtime. I crawl in and the cat comes in the room and hops up all cute and purring as I settle into a magazine. Imagine my delight when I got up to get some water and another very dead baby bird is lolling about the floor beside my bed. I'm swiftly losing my patience as I once again dispose of the critter and shut any and all doors and windows to make sure she doesn't get out and kill again, at least for the night. 5:15 AM and the sun's already creeping in as I wake up to go pee. I move my foot under the covers and feel something odd down there. "No..." I think, "It can't be..." and it is - the final withery dead baby bird dragged into my actual bed as I slept and placed lovingly so with, and I'm not making this up, a few green leaves placed next to it, as if Ling Ling were creating a culinary masterpiece complete with garnish. I realized that she must have had at least the last one stashed in the house somewhere since there was no way she could have gotten out. Suddenly queasy, I got rid of the damn thing and stayed up the rest of the night watching TV, rattled and unable to sleep. Since then she's been pretty much back to her bird-a-day habit, mostly small ugly ones, but the other day she dragged a huge black bird half her size up onto the porch! Tonight she came in with one still flapping around in her mouth and just dropped it off here under my desk, not even bothering to kill the poor thing. I think it must've had a bit of a wing problem since it couldn't really get off the ground, but it was mainly in shock. It limped over in the corner and I couldn't see any bloody wounds or anything too awful. The poor creature was clacking and panting and looked at me with untrusting beady black eyes. What on earth does one do? Certainly I wasn't about to name it something cutesy and devote my life to nursing the poor thing back to health, (although the thought did cross my mind) but I was afraid to just throw it outside where Miss Lady Killer would surely make short work out of finishing it off. I scooped it up in a box and put the box on the porch with just a small hole, thinking that might protect it from the cats and it could leave when it wanted to. "You gotta fend for yourself, kid - good luck, " I told the poor bird, whose current status remains unkown. I wouldn't be surprised if I saw it again by tomorrow morning, this time not looking quite so hot. Reminder to self - get a new bell for Ling Ling's collar before she brings Asian Bird Flu into my house.